Bitch, meet 'Tard. 'Tard, Bitch.
An old friend of mine liked to say that the most annoying situations are those in which someone else thinks you're stupid because they are stupid. Okay, maybe that's kinda stupid in itself, but I'll tell you a story that illustrates it perfectly.
You may recall the situation that took place with the yard boy a month or two ago. NOoo? Okay, here's a quick review.
A friend's son agreed to rake up the pine straw AND REMOVE IT FROM THE YARD. The deal with $130 for him to rake it up and haul it off in his truck. I didn't care where he hauled it; I just wanted it out of the yard.
The first sign that the arrangement might not go through came twenty minutes after he got here, when he faked a sudden and severe illness. I knew right away that he didn't want to do the job when he saw how hard it was going to be, so I gave him the opportunity to back out. In fact, I opened the door and invited him to back out of it, but he insisted that he wanted to do the job. So a few days later, he returned, raked for a few hours, and then came and told me that he had nowhere to haul the straw to so I could just burn it myself. He said it so matter-of-factly, like he hadn't been offered x number of dollars to get rid of it. The main reason we hired him was to get rid of it. I can rake it up and burn it myself, if that's what I want done. I hired him to GET IT OUT OF THE YARD. (Burning it was not an option. We live in town, and that's a lot of pine straw, and pine straw burns for a very long time. Burning 3 acres of pine straw would be a week long job, and probably result in something unspeakable since it would be so hard to control such a fire.) So when the kid came and told me he wasn't going to do the job we agreed on, I more or less said that this was not acceptable, and that I had no intention of giving him $130 if I was still going to have a yard full of pine straw. He said he'd finish it. Then he disappeared, and I haven't heard from him since.
Maybe I'm being presumptuous, but I don't think anyone can find fault in how I responded to the kid. You don't agree to do a job, decide you're not going to do all of it, and still expect the same compensation. (Unless, of course, you're a "Millennial.")
So that's what happened. His mother, who was a good friend of mine, hasn't called me since. I didn't know if she was pissed at me or if she thought I was pissed at her, and I'll admit that it's been bothering me a little. I'd hate to lose a friend over something like that, so last night I decided to give her a call and try to put things right.
I don't know what response I expected. I guess part of me expected her to apologize for her son's irresponsible behavior, or to say she understood where I was coming from. It would've been acceptable to me if we hadn't addressed the origin of the conflict at all, and instead just acted like nothing had ever happened. Pretty much any response would've been fine. Any response except the one I got, that is.
When she answered I asked how she was doing, then said something like, "I don't know if you're mad at me or if you think I'm mad at you, but I'm not, and I've been thinking about you and would hate for us to stop speaking over something silly."
Her response? "Aww that's okay, sug, I ain't mad at ya." (Yeah she's kinda country. Picture Dale's wife from King of the Hill.) "We just figgerd you's having some kinda hormonal thang and thought I'd back off and give you some space since you was being such a bitch and all."
WHA-WHA--WHAT? WWWWWHHHHAAAAATTT???
Now, you would think I would get pissed, but I didn't. In fact, I laughed. I literally laughed because I could not believe the level of ridiculousness I had opened myself up to by making this phone call. I mean, really. What kind of ignoramus calls you a bitch for not paying her son to not do a job he insisted he wanted to do?
When I stopped the awkward laughing, I sat there in silence with my jaw on the floor while she went on for a minute about how she just figured I needed some time to sort through whatever it was I was dealing with, etc., etc., etc.
God help me, it felt like something from a Seinfeld episode.
I didn't say anything. As much as I bitch when I am DeadpanAnn, the real life Ann doesn't thrive on conflict. At least not conflicts with the people I care about. I hope that doesn't break your heart, dear reader, but let's face it-- life's too short. (Institutions are another story, I suppose. I get off on railing against institutions.) I was just glad that we were over the hump and could move forward with our friendship, such that it is, even though it now feels more than a little dysfunctional. So in the end, I think I managed not to sigh heavily enough into her ear to tip her off that I thought she was full of shit-- not that she's real quick to pick up clues. The conversation switched pretty quickly to something that was going on in her amazing redneck world, and the friendship was saved.
It's strange. I felt better after talking to her even though she totally blamed me for the entire thing when it was so very clear that it resulted from her and/or her son's stupidity. I guess sometimes if you care about someone, you just have to take them for who they are, even if they are incomprehensibly retarded, but believe that YOU are the retarded one.
We're both retarded, obviously. She's retarded for thinking I'm a bitch, and I'm retarded for playing along. But hey, I still have someone to go get coffee with, and most days I need that more than I need to not be thought of as a bitch.
You may recall the situation that took place with the yard boy a month or two ago. NOoo? Okay, here's a quick review.
A friend's son agreed to rake up the pine straw AND REMOVE IT FROM THE YARD. The deal with $130 for him to rake it up and haul it off in his truck. I didn't care where he hauled it; I just wanted it out of the yard.
The first sign that the arrangement might not go through came twenty minutes after he got here, when he faked a sudden and severe illness. I knew right away that he didn't want to do the job when he saw how hard it was going to be, so I gave him the opportunity to back out. In fact, I opened the door and invited him to back out of it, but he insisted that he wanted to do the job. So a few days later, he returned, raked for a few hours, and then came and told me that he had nowhere to haul the straw to so I could just burn it myself. He said it so matter-of-factly, like he hadn't been offered x number of dollars to get rid of it. The main reason we hired him was to get rid of it. I can rake it up and burn it myself, if that's what I want done. I hired him to GET IT OUT OF THE YARD. (Burning it was not an option. We live in town, and that's a lot of pine straw, and pine straw burns for a very long time. Burning 3 acres of pine straw would be a week long job, and probably result in something unspeakable since it would be so hard to control such a fire.) So when the kid came and told me he wasn't going to do the job we agreed on, I more or less said that this was not acceptable, and that I had no intention of giving him $130 if I was still going to have a yard full of pine straw. He said he'd finish it. Then he disappeared, and I haven't heard from him since.
Maybe I'm being presumptuous, but I don't think anyone can find fault in how I responded to the kid. You don't agree to do a job, decide you're not going to do all of it, and still expect the same compensation. (Unless, of course, you're a "Millennial.")
So that's what happened. His mother, who was a good friend of mine, hasn't called me since. I didn't know if she was pissed at me or if she thought I was pissed at her, and I'll admit that it's been bothering me a little. I'd hate to lose a friend over something like that, so last night I decided to give her a call and try to put things right.
I don't know what response I expected. I guess part of me expected her to apologize for her son's irresponsible behavior, or to say she understood where I was coming from. It would've been acceptable to me if we hadn't addressed the origin of the conflict at all, and instead just acted like nothing had ever happened. Pretty much any response would've been fine. Any response except the one I got, that is.
When she answered I asked how she was doing, then said something like, "I don't know if you're mad at me or if you think I'm mad at you, but I'm not, and I've been thinking about you and would hate for us to stop speaking over something silly."
Her response? "Aww that's okay, sug, I ain't mad at ya." (Yeah she's kinda country. Picture Dale's wife from King of the Hill.) "We just figgerd you's having some kinda hormonal thang and thought I'd back off and give you some space since you was being such a bitch and all."
WHA-WHA--WHAT? WWWWWHHHHAAAAATTT???
Now, you would think I would get pissed, but I didn't. In fact, I laughed. I literally laughed because I could not believe the level of ridiculousness I had opened myself up to by making this phone call. I mean, really. What kind of ignoramus calls you a bitch for not paying her son to not do a job he insisted he wanted to do?
When I stopped the awkward laughing, I sat there in silence with my jaw on the floor while she went on for a minute about how she just figured I needed some time to sort through whatever it was I was dealing with, etc., etc., etc.
God help me, it felt like something from a Seinfeld episode.
I didn't say anything. As much as I bitch when I am DeadpanAnn, the real life Ann doesn't thrive on conflict. At least not conflicts with the people I care about. I hope that doesn't break your heart, dear reader, but let's face it-- life's too short. (Institutions are another story, I suppose. I get off on railing against institutions.) I was just glad that we were over the hump and could move forward with our friendship, such that it is, even though it now feels more than a little dysfunctional. So in the end, I think I managed not to sigh heavily enough into her ear to tip her off that I thought she was full of shit-- not that she's real quick to pick up clues. The conversation switched pretty quickly to something that was going on in her amazing redneck world, and the friendship was saved.
It's strange. I felt better after talking to her even though she totally blamed me for the entire thing when it was so very clear that it resulted from her and/or her son's stupidity. I guess sometimes if you care about someone, you just have to take them for who they are, even if they are incomprehensibly retarded, but believe that YOU are the retarded one.
We're both retarded, obviously. She's retarded for thinking I'm a bitch, and I'm retarded for playing along. But hey, I still have someone to go get coffee with, and most days I need that more than I need to not be thought of as a bitch.
