Ooops.

Got in last night around 2 AM, having been to a party with my friend from Denver, then gone to her house to hang out for a while. Didn't get to sleep until around 3.

Woke up this morning sometime around like 8:30 or 8:40 and herad banging. Oh, thought I, Dad's doing repairs, or nailing up some Christmas lights. Tried to drift back to sleep.

Mom and Dad's phone rings. Gets to the answering machine message. Person hangs up. Oh, thought I, Dad visited Grandpa and Grandpa's calling to see if he got home okay, the same way he did last week.

Some time later I realize that it's still going on. And that, moreover, the banging and the phone do not overlap at any point.

I pick up my parents' phone.

"WILL YOU OPEN THE FRIGGING DOOR ALREADY?" screams my mom.

I open the front door. She's livid. "Why the hell didn't you open the door?"

"I was asleep!" I stammer. I mean, she's enraged. I was thinking that if I tried to explain that I thoguht it was Dad she'd just get worse.

"You didn't hear me banging for the last goddamned twenty minutes?"

"No!"

"You didn't hear the phone?"

"No!" I go to hang up the phone.

"You're so full of it it isn't even funny," she yells.

By the time I come back she's not in the front part of the house, and her car's gone. I assume she's at work or at church, which means she will probably be back sometime around one. I don't like to think what will happen then. I'm cleaning up most of the house where I can, but...

"Look, I thought it was Dad doing house repair because when it snowed last week we got an ice dam in the gutter and the front window leaked - either that or he was putting up Christmas lights. And I thought the phone was ringing because it was Grandpa, and it didn't occur to me to think that no one else was in the house, because I hadn't looked at the clock. It took me a while to realize that the ringing and the banging didn't overlap, but when I did I checked outside to make sure that it wasn't a cop or something, and when I couldn't see a cop car I answered the phone and that's when I let you in. I didn't realize that it was someone banging on the door and not hammering on the house. I'm really sorry.

"It sounds so lame, but that's the truth. I was trying to sleep, I didn't know what time it was, I assumed Dad was home and so I did not bother answering anything. The fact that it was only my parents' line ringing and not the phone in my room made me think it wasn't an emergency, because I'm pretty sure I programmed my line into the cell phones and I assumed that if it WERE, then my own line would be ringing. I'm sorry. I didn't mean to leave you outside like that."

God, I hope she accepts it, because that's the truth and I can't help it if it sounds stupid. I wasn't being inconsiderate, I was just being stupid.

I have got to get a job that lets me move out of this house. Not to get away from Mom being angry, just to avoid stuff like this and other small scale 'you're here so do X' family responsibilities in future.

Partial steps towards atoning for the 'oops'

Cleaned up the kitchen as best I was able. Vacuumed living room, steps (dunno if this will be noticed as there wasn't much there to begin with but you never know). Folded everything in laundry room and put it away, did wash of all stuff on floor.

Went to hardware store. Got house key duplicated- made four copies. There is now a house key on all three 'extra' key rings I know of (these are key rings formerly holding only the keys to cars; Mom had one of them in her hand when she came in this morning), and one key left to go where my parents think it fit.

Also bought myself wrapping paper, bows, and tape, as well as a spare roll of tape for the house since wrapping-related issues seem to set my mom off something awful at this time of year.

Fuck.

It wasn't good enough.
I should have known.

I thought it was Dad- "And you didn't bother to get out of bed and CHECK?" "Well, I thought-" "I was banging on that door for twenty-five minutes! And you didn't check?" "No, I thought-" "I was ringing the doorbell! Do you mean you didn't hear that?" "Actually, no, I didn't."

I thought the phone was grandpa- "I called six times! Six! Times! And you didn't bother to answer it!" "I thought maybe-" "SIX TIMES!"

I got out of bed and checked and I saw Dad's car was gone and yours was on the street- "And you didn't bother to open the door then??" "Actually, that WAS when I opened the door-"

"YOU HAVE NO SENSE OF RESPONSIBILITY, you know that? None! None whatsoever! You don't think anything matters but YOU and what YOU want and what YOU do in that room of yours!"

I tried one last gasp, one mention of 'I thought if it was an emergency you'd call my line, that's partly why I didn't answer-"

"You know what? You're right. You're ABSOLUTELY right. Everything YOU do is right."

Storms off.

Fuck...


(And you know what? I have this horrible urge to yell back at her "If I have no sense of responsiblity then why did my head almost explode with the conflict over 'someone should go with Grandma' versus 'dear God in Heaven I don't want to!'?")

Fuck again.

Wrapped Dad's present.

Mom says, "We're going to the party now-" A family of our friends is having a tree trimming party tonight.

"I'll be there soon," I say.

... I can't even remember the next part of the conversation straight. What it amounted to was 'you're irresponsible and you LIED this morning', 'I was scared, you were so angry that I blurted the first thing that came into my head', 'which was a lie', 'well-', 'which was a LIE', 'well, yeah, and I'm sorry, but you were so angry-', 'I was angry this morning, I wasn't angry about the twenty five minutes when I came home now, I was angry about being lied to', quite a lot of stuff about irresponsibility and what if that had been a cop or firefighter (which is what made me think to get up and look out the window in the first place), and 'you're going to have a LOT MORE RESPONSIBILITY from now on, it's nice that you clean the kitchen but there is LOTS more to running a house than that and you're going to do your share', etc.

All right, I can deal with that- even with the recently increased rent- but... God, I am such an ass. Such a fucking ass. I don't trust myself to go out of the house right now, since I'd just be going to the same party and I'm terrified I might say or do the wrong thing and someone might ask why I looked upset and I'd say it and it'd just get all over the place...

I'm such a goddamned moron. And, apparently, I have no fucking sense of responsibility to the household.

Goddamn it.

I have got to get a job that lets me move out. My family loves me. It is not a dysfunctional family. But I have lived in it too long and I have gotten stupid, soft, and lazy. I should have moved out long ago and become a proper goddamn grownup. I'm nearly thirty. I should have left a long time ago...

I'm so goddamn stupid sometimes.

Now I have to go breathe until it's safe to get changed and go to the party.