Home Sweet Home

My family were putting pressure on me this week to stay home more and make them normal meals, meaning non-vegan, non-healthy, laden with meat or cheese (separately, of course) and vegetables only as a side dish. I thought I'd do that yesterday, so last night was spaghetti and meat sauce for dinner.

This morning I was rewarded accordingly. My unemployed daughter calls me up to rat on her brother at 9:30 am.

"Why didn't he go to school?" she demanded. Not that she cares about his education, mind you, but because she wants to take over the computer that's in his room. The family computer.

I call him and he's like --- "Ok, Ok, I'm on my way right now!"

"Why are you late by an hour?"

"Because my English teacher isn't in today, so what am I going to do - huh?" he asks me.

"How do you know your English teacher won't be coming in today??" Did he get a chain call from one of his classmates telling him of the good news? Of course not.

11:30 am I get a frantic call from my daughter, while I'm busy at work, and needing to get stuff done in a hurry.

"That stupid boy locked the computer. Call him NOW and get the code from him, otherwise I'll wreck this whole place. I'll wreck everything he has."

I tried to get her to have patience, tolerance, whatever....until he got home from school, but she and I both know that once that happens, he takes over the computer and hardly lets her on.

I called him in school, figuring he's not in class anyways. I was right.

"Nu, what?" he asked me impatiently, as if he's pretending that he's interested in joining class.

"Give me the code now. PLEASE!! I don't want your room in pieces."

"Why did she tell you I wasn't in school??? Because of that I locked the computer. She can go fuck herself."

Great. But I think he was worried about his stuff, so he gave me the code and I passed it on to my daughter.

One hour later, she calls me back.

"Why is he here?? He rushed back from school so I can't be on the computer? I swear I don't care if he calls the police, if I don't go on the computer at 1:00 I'll KILL HIM!!"

So now you know why I try to force feed healthy food to my kids, and also, why I'm out all the time, as much I can be.

Two hours passed. No phone calls. I'm wondering if I'll be coming home to kids with broken bones and shit thrown and broken into pieces all over our brand new house. How far will they go? And all this over a computer!!

At 3:00 my son calls. He's calm. So I assume he hasn't thrown her out of the 8th floor window. He's concerned because he's being called up for army service and doesn't want to take the urine test there. He wants to do it at our local medical clinic, so where did I put the forms. I give out a great big loud OY and my boss hears, and is taking it personally.

"I know" she says. "I drive you crazy, don't I."

Not at all. Not at all.