It was a surprise meeting that popped up out of the blue. And it messed up my day. And I lost my patience with the whole affair.
Here's the deal ....
I took a job back in August as a full-time live-in nanny. My employer is a single mom, very driven, and a total doll to work for. She was so awesome all during my mother's illness and then her death. She even came to my mother's wake.
She has repeatedly mentioned a brother whom I had never met before (until today, that is) and who I have quietly witnessed let her down again and again by his repeated failure to do things he promised. Such as he was supposed to come to the house back in September and DJ her children's double birthday party -- no show. He was supposed to come to the house in October and bring one of his older computers and set it up for the kids to do homework -- no show. He was AGAIN supposed to come durng the first week of November and set up the computer -- no show again.
And then my employer tells me a few weeks ago that she is heading off to her timeshare in the Berkshires for Thanksgiving and wants to know if I'd like to come. I asked if I could instead stay behind and cook Thanksgiving dinner for my family here at her house. She was fine with that. And I shared with her the silly quirks of my family, how we haven't spoken in years, how the illness and then death of my mother these past 5 months pretty much brought us all together, how my brother is a chronicgambler who believes the Anti-Christ is coming any day now, how my father told me he won't come to dinner unless there's someone else there to offset my brother and his rantings, how my sister is a health food enthusiast and so I need to appease her with my food choices or she won't come to dinner either.
I spent nearly $500.00 this past Sunday to please my sister by buying only organic stuff for Thanksgiving -- all natural, no anti-biotics, not GMO's -- and I drove nearly 90 minutes round trip to buy it for her.
So, my employer and her two kids jmp in the car yesterday evening and head for the timeshare in the Berkshires. I now have the house to my self until Friday evening.
I slept in this morning and then by 11:00 I started doing laundry and cooking some of my Thanksgiving stuff ahead of time. I chop some vegetables, I get the greenbeans cooking on the stove (organic fresh greebeans which will take 3 hours to cook). But I had no potato peeler because my employer took it with her to the Berkshires, and I have no roasting pan either. So I intend to leave this afternoon by 3:00 or 3:30 to go shopping for a few odds and ends, and especially the potato peeler and the roasting pan.
But by 3:10 she calls and says her brother is coming by with the computer so she asks if I can be there to let him.
Sure, I say. So I set up a corner of the living room for him where the computer needs to go. I pull out a set of TV trays for him to use and I dust off one of my old powerstrips and brig it downstairs to where the computer will go. And I wait.
And wait. I am cooking, but there's little left I can do without that potato peeler.
By 5:00 he's still not here so I text her asking if I can just go to the store because I need to get cracking with my pre-cooking stuff. She says yes, feel free. But just five minutes later, before I can leave, he comes in and so now I meet him for the very first time.
She never told me he was physically disabled with partial paralysis to the left side of his body and a pronounced limp. But that's not a big deal, right? I can socialize with a physically disabled person, right?
Meanwhile, he seems to have an incontinence problem and he reeks of urine. But that's not a big deal, right? I can get past the smell, right?
Meanwhile, he's a "mumbler" who never shuts up and is always talking out loud to himself, making sound effects and contantly engaged in a running verbal commentary. But that's not a big deal, right? I can get past his motor mouth, right?
Meanwhile, he is getting dropped of by a friend who drove him here because it turns out he cannot drive. Oh well. His friend is coming back "in just a while" he said to me. (How long can it take to set up a computer?)
Meanwhile, he is also what I shall delicately call "a hinter." Many physically disabled people have developed the skill of getting people to do things for them by hinting and cajoling, and doing their very fucking rock bottom goddamned best to never utter the words "I hate to be a bother, but could you possibly ....." Nope--never utter it in the form of a request. Never if they can possibly help it. It's an art form. And I absolutely HATE "hinters" no matter what corner of life they come from, able-bodied or not, I detest the practice of "hinting." It rubs me the wrong way on so many levels. Just come out and SAY it .... please????? I really am very accomodating if you'd just ask me with a forthrightness and you don't resort to "handling" me and "managing" me and "coercing" me and ... (there's no other way to say it) ... "manipulating" me. The hair stands up on the back of my neck if I sense anyone is trying to manipulate me.
So ... first thing he says as he's limping through the door with a laptop in his hands is: "Hi, I'm Mike. You ust be Plot Device. I need an electical outlet because my computer battery is dying." No problem. So he hands me the laptop (without asking if I'm even willing to take it, just thrusts it into my hands) and orders me (yes, he ORDERS me) to plug it in as soon as possible. And I do. And as I a plugging it in he keeps directing me at every step of the way on the best way to plug it in and the need for me to keep it as upright as possible as I do so.
Next ... he wants to me carry in the monitor that his friend set down on the porch before said-freind hurried off to his car and took off. But he won't actually ASK me to carry in the monitor. He needs to "hint" about it. So I do it.
Then he needs to go down into the basement and find a spare computer cable. I tell him there's no railing. No worries. He fully intends to go down into the cellar in spite of no railing. He tells me he needs a flashight (doesn't ask, just announces that he needs one). I run upstairs and get mine from my bedroom. I hand it to him. Then I resign myself to not doing any more chores (cooking or laundry or whatever) while he is still here. If I do chores upstairs, he will probably disrupt me by hinting at his need of me to do this or to do that. If I try to do my laundry in the basement where he currently is, he will again probably try to get me to do this or to do that. So I instead just sit down at my computer in the living room and I resign myself to wait for him to leave. Then once he is gone I can get back into my groove of trying to get my pre-Thanksgiving cooking done, get my laundry done, and also to head out to the store eventually to buy my potato peeler so I can peel potatoes and squash and yams.
I hear him bumping around downstairs and he is being VERY loud and demonstrative about it. He's TOO loud for his bumping around to be anything more than some need he has to be loud and to constantly make other people aware of his presence. And he's "mumbling" too -- he's endlessly making private commentary out loud (operant word being "loud") accompanied by whistles and sighs and grunts and laughs. And I keep thinking he might be wanting to entice me into coming downstairs via these overt verbal offerings, but my patience is wearing thin. Between the smell of piss and the tiresome running commentary and his doing the one thing that irks me right out the door --subtle manipulative coerciveness-- I just want to ignore him. He'll be gone soon, right?
And then he calls out: "Here's your flashlight!" But I simply call back to him: "You can just leave it by the washing machine."
Little did I realize that his true intention was for me to come down stairs to get the flashlight becasue he had another chore in mind for me. After he repeatedly said "Here's your flashlight!" And after I repeatedly said he can just leave it by the washing machine, he finally came upstairs with my flashlight AND a second (much bigger) flashlight in hand. And then he puts on a big dispay of exhaustion whereby he huffs and puffs and sighs to me: "Whew! I really didn't wanna have to come all the way back up stairs again but you didn't come down and I really needed you to --" So I interrupted him: "If you needed me to do something, why didn't you just SAY so?" He didn't answer. But I knew the answer: he doesn't want to ever have to actually ask. "Communicatio is a good thing," I added. "What do you need?"
He explained: "I found a better flashlight, but I can't change the power cell. It's stuck." And he gestures it toward me.
I take it and I try to change it. It IS stuck. So I ask him if he can hold one end and I'll try to pry it open myself at the other. He does. We did it together with a lot of effort.
After he has his new flashlight working, he goes back downstairs and again bumps around for easilly half an hour, making needlessly loud noises with his hands and his mouth, never ceasing. Never.
Its almost 7:00 and the stores will all close by 10:00. No stores will be open tmorrow. If I am going to go to the grocery store and get a potato peeler and a roasting pan, I have to go right now. The alternative is I have to peel over 15 pounds of vegetables by hand, and I have to mickey mouse a pan for baking a 12 pound bird in.
He comes upstairs and I ask him how much longer he needs to stay. He says his friend wil be back in half an hour. He calls his friend and says he needs a computer cord. His friend says he is out getting a haircut and will be there in half an hour. He keeps messing with the computer, endlessly commenting out loud to no one.
By 8:00 his friend still hasn't come. I ask where his friend is. He says "he'll be back soon." And he assures me he and his friend are going to a party together tonight. "What time does the party start?" I ask. "At 7:00," he says.
I suddenly get a call from my employer who apologizes and explains that her brother got shot in the head about five years ago by an armed robber and that's why he's semi-paralyzed and also why he sometimes doesn't think things through very well. (She never once told me he was in any way disabled, that he couldn't drive, or that he has reasoning difficulties.)
I explain to her I am worried he is perhaps getting ditched by his friend who is supposedly out getting a haircut (at 8:00 PM on the night before Thanksgiving??). I am worried he will wind up spending the night and then he will be here tomorrow with my family. I do not mention to her the fact that he smells like piss, but he has no change of clothes and so he might be here tomorrow in those same clothes while I am trying to mend a 20-year rift in my family. I further explain that I need that potato peeler and that roasting pan or I will not be able to complete about 50% of my Thanksgiving dinner before 9:00 tomorrow morning. I tell her I can gladly give him a ride wherever he wants to go. She tells me to give him a spare house key and to instruct him to toss it under the mat when he leaves. Then I can feel free to go to the store.
I go downstairs and explain to him about the key. He expains that his friend just arrived a few mintes ago and then left again-- he dropped off the computer cord and so now he will complete the installatio of the computer. I wanted so much to ask "Why the hell didn't you just fucking leave??" But I didn't.
I go to the store at 8:30. I get all my stuff.
I get back by 9:30 and he is still here. The smell of urine is worse.
I call her and ask her where she might like me to have him sleep if he DOES spend the night. She assures me that she beleives his friend is indeed coming.
After I hang up with my employer, I ask him when his friend is coming. He says "Whenever. After you gave me the key I called him back and told him to just take his time now."
I just ignore him and I start peeling butternut squash with the potato peeler.
I overhear him calling his friend and telling him "I gotta get out of this house, man!" I go back into the living room and try to assure him he can come to his own sister's house whenever he wants to. He says: "You're making me uncomfortable!"
And then he just leaves.
So ....
I think I might get fired now. And what's worse is that when you are a live-in nanny who gets fired ... you are not only out of a job, you are also out of a home.
.
Here's the deal ....
I took a job back in August as a full-time live-in nanny. My employer is a single mom, very driven, and a total doll to work for. She was so awesome all during my mother's illness and then her death. She even came to my mother's wake.
She has repeatedly mentioned a brother whom I had never met before (until today, that is) and who I have quietly witnessed let her down again and again by his repeated failure to do things he promised. Such as he was supposed to come to the house back in September and DJ her children's double birthday party -- no show. He was supposed to come to the house in October and bring one of his older computers and set it up for the kids to do homework -- no show. He was AGAIN supposed to come durng the first week of November and set up the computer -- no show again.
And then my employer tells me a few weeks ago that she is heading off to her timeshare in the Berkshires for Thanksgiving and wants to know if I'd like to come. I asked if I could instead stay behind and cook Thanksgiving dinner for my family here at her house. She was fine with that. And I shared with her the silly quirks of my family, how we haven't spoken in years, how the illness and then death of my mother these past 5 months pretty much brought us all together, how my brother is a chronicgambler who believes the Anti-Christ is coming any day now, how my father told me he won't come to dinner unless there's someone else there to offset my brother and his rantings, how my sister is a health food enthusiast and so I need to appease her with my food choices or she won't come to dinner either.
I spent nearly $500.00 this past Sunday to please my sister by buying only organic stuff for Thanksgiving -- all natural, no anti-biotics, not GMO's -- and I drove nearly 90 minutes round trip to buy it for her.
So, my employer and her two kids jmp in the car yesterday evening and head for the timeshare in the Berkshires. I now have the house to my self until Friday evening.
I slept in this morning and then by 11:00 I started doing laundry and cooking some of my Thanksgiving stuff ahead of time. I chop some vegetables, I get the greenbeans cooking on the stove (organic fresh greebeans which will take 3 hours to cook). But I had no potato peeler because my employer took it with her to the Berkshires, and I have no roasting pan either. So I intend to leave this afternoon by 3:00 or 3:30 to go shopping for a few odds and ends, and especially the potato peeler and the roasting pan.
But by 3:10 she calls and says her brother is coming by with the computer so she asks if I can be there to let him.
Sure, I say. So I set up a corner of the living room for him where the computer needs to go. I pull out a set of TV trays for him to use and I dust off one of my old powerstrips and brig it downstairs to where the computer will go. And I wait.
And wait. I am cooking, but there's little left I can do without that potato peeler.
By 5:00 he's still not here so I text her asking if I can just go to the store because I need to get cracking with my pre-cooking stuff. She says yes, feel free. But just five minutes later, before I can leave, he comes in and so now I meet him for the very first time.
She never told me he was physically disabled with partial paralysis to the left side of his body and a pronounced limp. But that's not a big deal, right? I can socialize with a physically disabled person, right?
Meanwhile, he seems to have an incontinence problem and he reeks of urine. But that's not a big deal, right? I can get past the smell, right?
Meanwhile, he's a "mumbler" who never shuts up and is always talking out loud to himself, making sound effects and contantly engaged in a running verbal commentary. But that's not a big deal, right? I can get past his motor mouth, right?
Meanwhile, he is getting dropped of by a friend who drove him here because it turns out he cannot drive. Oh well. His friend is coming back "in just a while" he said to me. (How long can it take to set up a computer?)
Meanwhile, he is also what I shall delicately call "a hinter." Many physically disabled people have developed the skill of getting people to do things for them by hinting and cajoling, and doing their very fucking rock bottom goddamned best to never utter the words "I hate to be a bother, but could you possibly ....." Nope--never utter it in the form of a request. Never if they can possibly help it. It's an art form. And I absolutely HATE "hinters" no matter what corner of life they come from, able-bodied or not, I detest the practice of "hinting." It rubs me the wrong way on so many levels. Just come out and SAY it .... please????? I really am very accomodating if you'd just ask me with a forthrightness and you don't resort to "handling" me and "managing" me and "coercing" me and ... (there's no other way to say it) ... "manipulating" me. The hair stands up on the back of my neck if I sense anyone is trying to manipulate me.
So ... first thing he says as he's limping through the door with a laptop in his hands is: "Hi, I'm Mike. You ust be Plot Device. I need an electical outlet because my computer battery is dying." No problem. So he hands me the laptop (without asking if I'm even willing to take it, just thrusts it into my hands) and orders me (yes, he ORDERS me) to plug it in as soon as possible. And I do. And as I a plugging it in he keeps directing me at every step of the way on the best way to plug it in and the need for me to keep it as upright as possible as I do so.
Next ... he wants to me carry in the monitor that his friend set down on the porch before said-freind hurried off to his car and took off. But he won't actually ASK me to carry in the monitor. He needs to "hint" about it. So I do it.
Then he needs to go down into the basement and find a spare computer cable. I tell him there's no railing. No worries. He fully intends to go down into the cellar in spite of no railing. He tells me he needs a flashight (doesn't ask, just announces that he needs one). I run upstairs and get mine from my bedroom. I hand it to him. Then I resign myself to not doing any more chores (cooking or laundry or whatever) while he is still here. If I do chores upstairs, he will probably disrupt me by hinting at his need of me to do this or to do that. If I try to do my laundry in the basement where he currently is, he will again probably try to get me to do this or to do that. So I instead just sit down at my computer in the living room and I resign myself to wait for him to leave. Then once he is gone I can get back into my groove of trying to get my pre-Thanksgiving cooking done, get my laundry done, and also to head out to the store eventually to buy my potato peeler so I can peel potatoes and squash and yams.
I hear him bumping around downstairs and he is being VERY loud and demonstrative about it. He's TOO loud for his bumping around to be anything more than some need he has to be loud and to constantly make other people aware of his presence. And he's "mumbling" too -- he's endlessly making private commentary out loud (operant word being "loud") accompanied by whistles and sighs and grunts and laughs. And I keep thinking he might be wanting to entice me into coming downstairs via these overt verbal offerings, but my patience is wearing thin. Between the smell of piss and the tiresome running commentary and his doing the one thing that irks me right out the door --subtle manipulative coerciveness-- I just want to ignore him. He'll be gone soon, right?
And then he calls out: "Here's your flashlight!" But I simply call back to him: "You can just leave it by the washing machine."
Little did I realize that his true intention was for me to come down stairs to get the flashlight becasue he had another chore in mind for me. After he repeatedly said "Here's your flashlight!" And after I repeatedly said he can just leave it by the washing machine, he finally came upstairs with my flashlight AND a second (much bigger) flashlight in hand. And then he puts on a big dispay of exhaustion whereby he huffs and puffs and sighs to me: "Whew! I really didn't wanna have to come all the way back up stairs again but you didn't come down and I really needed you to --" So I interrupted him: "If you needed me to do something, why didn't you just SAY so?" He didn't answer. But I knew the answer: he doesn't want to ever have to actually ask. "Communicatio is a good thing," I added. "What do you need?"
He explained: "I found a better flashlight, but I can't change the power cell. It's stuck." And he gestures it toward me.
I take it and I try to change it. It IS stuck. So I ask him if he can hold one end and I'll try to pry it open myself at the other. He does. We did it together with a lot of effort.
After he has his new flashlight working, he goes back downstairs and again bumps around for easilly half an hour, making needlessly loud noises with his hands and his mouth, never ceasing. Never.
Its almost 7:00 and the stores will all close by 10:00. No stores will be open tmorrow. If I am going to go to the grocery store and get a potato peeler and a roasting pan, I have to go right now. The alternative is I have to peel over 15 pounds of vegetables by hand, and I have to mickey mouse a pan for baking a 12 pound bird in.
He comes upstairs and I ask him how much longer he needs to stay. He says his friend wil be back in half an hour. He calls his friend and says he needs a computer cord. His friend says he is out getting a haircut and will be there in half an hour. He keeps messing with the computer, endlessly commenting out loud to no one.
By 8:00 his friend still hasn't come. I ask where his friend is. He says "he'll be back soon." And he assures me he and his friend are going to a party together tonight. "What time does the party start?" I ask. "At 7:00," he says.
I suddenly get a call from my employer who apologizes and explains that her brother got shot in the head about five years ago by an armed robber and that's why he's semi-paralyzed and also why he sometimes doesn't think things through very well. (She never once told me he was in any way disabled, that he couldn't drive, or that he has reasoning difficulties.)
I explain to her I am worried he is perhaps getting ditched by his friend who is supposedly out getting a haircut (at 8:00 PM on the night before Thanksgiving??). I am worried he will wind up spending the night and then he will be here tomorrow with my family. I do not mention to her the fact that he smells like piss, but he has no change of clothes and so he might be here tomorrow in those same clothes while I am trying to mend a 20-year rift in my family. I further explain that I need that potato peeler and that roasting pan or I will not be able to complete about 50% of my Thanksgiving dinner before 9:00 tomorrow morning. I tell her I can gladly give him a ride wherever he wants to go. She tells me to give him a spare house key and to instruct him to toss it under the mat when he leaves. Then I can feel free to go to the store.
I go downstairs and explain to him about the key. He expains that his friend just arrived a few mintes ago and then left again-- he dropped off the computer cord and so now he will complete the installatio of the computer. I wanted so much to ask "Why the hell didn't you just fucking leave??" But I didn't.
I go to the store at 8:30. I get all my stuff.
I get back by 9:30 and he is still here. The smell of urine is worse.
I call her and ask her where she might like me to have him sleep if he DOES spend the night. She assures me that she beleives his friend is indeed coming.
After I hang up with my employer, I ask him when his friend is coming. He says "Whenever. After you gave me the key I called him back and told him to just take his time now."
I just ignore him and I start peeling butternut squash with the potato peeler.
I overhear him calling his friend and telling him "I gotta get out of this house, man!" I go back into the living room and try to assure him he can come to his own sister's house whenever he wants to. He says: "You're making me uncomfortable!"
And then he just leaves.
So ....
I think I might get fired now. And what's worse is that when you are a live-in nanny who gets fired ... you are not only out of a job, you are also out of a home.
.