Flotsam and Jetsam

My mind is racing. Which frankly is not all that welcome an alternative to Kelly and Michael making cutesy remarks and dressing up for Halloween like Kim Kardashian and Kanye West. Kelly had to wear a wig and prosthetic ass and Michael had to force himself to scowl. Genius.

My mother's isolation has taken its toll in many ways. When she stopped working, she lost what few remaining shreds of decorum she ever had. No pressure to conform to office etiquette. No reason to take a collaborative approach to anything. Any collegial notions were replaced with a full on scorched earth solution to each and every situation. God help the cop that tries to give her a speeding ticket.

Worse, she spends too much time alone with her selectively hard of hearing spouse who essentially tunes her out when she's ranting on and on about something that's gotten stuck far too long and far too deep in her craw. She watches a lot of right wing TV. She's formed some pretty harsh and pretty extreme opinions. She somehow feels the need to be armed. There is going to be an uprising. She'll have to protect what is rightfully hers. Pity the poor schlub who tries to make off with her gas grill.

And she has far too much time to ruminate and muse on topics that no one needs to spend a single crumb of gray matter on ever again so long as they live.

Why on Earth would she be wondering about my Dad's possessions? Why would she care where the flotsam and jetsam from his house finally came to rest? Dad moved out of that house 10 years ago and has been dead for eight of them. Why think about the spoils now?

Because she can. And damn it, no one is going to stop her.

Sure I have things from my Dad's house. We all do. She famously took his hunting rifle (Fired once, probably only for affect, but still a gun in working order. Of course she HAD to have it. See paragraph 3).

I remember when Charlotte and I (mostly Charlotte) were cleaning out the house to sell it. There was a full dumpster and a half (mashed down to fit in one) of crap that was hauled away. Old clothes. Dozens of empty detergent bottles. Pounds of old newspaper. Toys. Magazines. Dry rotted sporting equipment. Prom dresses. Moth eaten coats and hats and mittens. Cleaning out the Addams Family house would have been easier.

We'd had a yard sale. Anything Dad wasn't taking with him and was in great shape was on the lawn. Tools, appliances, linens, curtains, bed frames, area rugs. All of it.

Except for the things we each thought were special. I remember putting together piles of pictures and fondly remembered items for each of us. Trophies and golf pictures for Joe. Swimming medals and High School yearbooks for Charlotte. Knick knacks and Navy photos for me. Joe had made some choices himself, as well. He had some clothes of Dad's. And his chair. He took the golf clubs that my Dad held in his hands every Saturday for decades. He took the antique wagon from my Dad's newspaper days. He took the Nativity set that my parents picked out at Gimbels as a present to themselves. He took the television Lars had gotten my Dad when his big console TV could not make the trip to the nursing home.

And what he may have missed out on was his own fault. He avoided anything that looked like work when it came to cleaning out and cleaning up the house to be placed on the market. And the few times he did show up under duress to "help", he barely lifted a finger, brought his children (who then needed to be watched), and was consumed the entire time with when we might be ordering lunch. He was just north of useless on all occassions. And so if he missed out on the contents of Dad's jewelry box or the green hobnail iced tea glasses because Charlotte and I found them and decided I should keep them, and he wasn't there to argue, piss on him. Snooze, lose. Charlotte and I were the picture of fair play when it came to dividing the contents of Dad's house.

And then, when Dad went from Assisted Living to a Nursing Home, and Lars and his buddies moved all of his stuff to my house one night to avoid another month of rent, I called Charlotte and Joe and asked for them to come and take anything they might want. I had a basement full of stuff and it needed to go.

Charlotte wanted nothing but did offer to take away and shred all of Dad's old tax records and payroll stubs and other things that he'd wanted to keep and needed to go. Dust mites and all.

Joe did nothing. Asked for nothing. Offered no help. Showed no interest. So yes, I got the hutch. It's in my dining room and it will remain there. So will the desk that my Dad made in woodshop in high school. I'd asked once. I'd asked twice. Three times. Sold to the lady with room in her basement.

And now, eight years later, this is what Estelle wants to face off about? Drop the puck!

I may not be able to call her from the Jury Assembly Room, but the funny thing about texting is, it works both ways.

If someone sends you a digital letter bomb, nothing says you can't lob one back.