The Blog

   Why the hell do I feel obligated to clean up after you?...

Sometimes I think I only got the blog back so that I could rant about my family. They piss me off so much! The subject of today's rant: my father.

So most of you don't know this, but my father moved out of home in February. He moved into his mother's townhouse, which, sadly, is still in the same suburb as our house, and he tends to come over and hang out here whenever he wants. Because the internet is faster (he'll never convince me of his "dial-up is faster" wankfest, mainly because: a) I understand the science of how it works; and b) I control the router, so I know why he believes that the internet was always down/slow around here), and because he can't stand his mother. And I think on some level he wants to confuse my poor mother, who just wants to be left alone so that her broken heart can start to heal.

Anyway, that's the background of where I'm at with regards to my relationship with him.

So then we get to his crusades. Ever since his brain tumour / personality transport (1988), my father has been prone to declaring that "next weekend is a cleanup crusade and you all have to be here to participate." Regardless of previous plans or inclination and who the so-called "mess" belongs to (usually him). Most of the cleanups have centred around the garage, and in recent years I've been able to skip it simply by going in to uni to work.

This weekend was no different, although as well as cleaning out the garage, he'd arranged a council cleanup (where the council guys send a truck around to pick up a 2x1x1 metres pile of stuff - you get two of these a year). Now, aside from the fact that I kept getting called out to the garage to confirm that "yes, the box of stuff marked "Catherine's" does belong to Catherine, and yes, I still want my Star Wars toys, you heathen scum", they tore up a bunch of furniture (which probably could have just been moved and left for one of our neighbours to collect) and generally built up a pile that was about 10x1.5x1 metres i.e. it was frickin' huge!

And while the neighbours were very obliging about picking up some of the furniture, and the unopened scanner, and the old cricket gear (most of which went to a very cute little kid who seemed delighted to get his first cricket bat, even if it was a little bit battered), a lot was left for the council. Who, quite understandably, only took 2x1x1 metres worth of stuff and left the rest. Kinda like they'd agreed.

That brings us to tonight, when my father decides that not only is he going to pick up Catherine from the station and do my mother a favour (and why the hell is he hanging around here anyway? Does he just lurk to watch the council workers or something? Were they cute?), he's going to dump a carful of garbage in one of the parking lots up there. While I'm sitting in the car.

HELLO? Did he miss the part of my adolescence where I took part in six Clean-Up Australia Days? And the bit where I was president of Club Earth in High School? And the bit where I always vote Green? And he wants me to just sit there and take it while he litters like that? When I tried to express my outrage all I got was a "I pay my taxes, and the council won't even do their part..." rant. I don't fucking care about your taxes! Your council, who you voted for, chose to enact these rules. They are, in effect, your rules, that you desired. And if you didn't agree, you should go to council and petition them to change it.

The worst bit is I feel so bad about the whole affair that tomorrow morning I'm going to go back there and clean it up. I'm not sure how I'm going to dispose of his boxes of garbage, but I'm sure I'll find a way. It's the right thing to do.

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