a little pissed this morning

awhile back my son was out and didn't have the right change for bus. he walked to my parents place from where he was (about 1.5 miles). it was mild enough, only about -12C that day. he wears a cosmic winter coat i bought him this year and has good gloves and such. he could have gotten change, but chose not to.

he had called me to ask for a ride - i said no because he hadn't even informed me it was a possibility and i was busy (i was in the middle of a dinner date with Smitten) i had earlier been in the area of town where he was, and had wondered whether i should pick him up, but he wasn't where he said he was going to be when i checked - i advised him of that. when he called i asked him if he had enough money for the bus and he said yes.

back to the original discussion - it concerned my parents and i that he might show up at their place and they wouldn't be home. and that it might be really cold on such a day.

he told them he didn't have the money for the bus. either they misinterpreted, or he misspoke himself - he had been up all night at a computer gaming tournament and was less than fully coherent. la monnaie in french means change. being french immersion his whole life, sometimes his english usage defaults to french words or their exact english translation and he is slightly idiomatically incorrect.

i had yet another discussion with him about what he should do in the event of being stranded somewhere. it's not that he is being irresponsible, it's just he might make a dumb decision sometime - especially if he was out at a party and had been drinking or whatnot... (yes, i know he is only sixteen - but let's get real here people).

i discussed with him that if he was stranded he had various options including phoning me, his grandparents, his uncles and aunts and so forth. i explained to him that even if no-one would let him use a phone, he can make a collect local call from a payphone. i explained to him that if he was stranded (lets say during a blizzard or at a party gone wrong [or having escaped to a corner store after a party gone wrong]) that even if we were unable to drive him (let's say i had some wine and shouldn't be driving [not that i do it much, but i was trying to model responsible procedures in the event of alcohol consumption], or my mom or dad weren't up to driving at night), that we could either use a credit card over the phone, or we would get a cab and come to where he was to pick him up. as well as single rescuing of him, we wanted to underline once again that neither he nor his friends should be driving, and that we would make things work - even if we needed to drive friends' cars (or friends parent's cars) home so they wouldn't be drinking and driving either.

blah, blah, blah

one of the things i did was make a zip-lock bag with coins and bus tickets - for emergencies. that way, he would have 18 hours of public transport and coin always available.

he put this coin into one of the many pockets of his coat (it's a snow boarding coat so it has a gazillion pockets)

the winter coat is white nylon.

it was getting dirty

his mother decides to wash to coat

like she has for the last 20 years, she doesn't go through pockets properly when she pulls something off the hanger to wash it.

she washes it without checking all the pockets.

the bag of bus tickets gets washed and for whatever reason the bus tickets get wet - probably because son opened it and didn't seal it right.

the bus tickets are wrecked

i know it's only $12.50 but it pisses me off

it pisses me off that my careful preparation is casually ruined by her bad habit of not checking pockets properly. it pisses me off at a bunch of levels.

and it's not like it's the first time. she's been doing it for years. one time (while we were still together), she took a cardigan that i had hanging on the chair in my room and decided to wash it because she need another green item. not because it needed washing, but to make a load big enough to justify washing it in her mind.

i had, the night before, put about a year's worth of massage receipts in my pocket to take to work to file the medical insurance paperwork. that was about $1200 worth of receipts. i had to go about getting official duplicates, and get special permission to file duplicates with the insurance company. a big hassle. over the years she's washed my checkbooks, my pens, my wallet, letters, bills, notes... and in items that were not in the laundry basket. several of the times with the pens, she took my shirt from the chair i had hung it on - i was doing yard work, and had changed into work clothes, but intended to change back into my original shirt later.

aaaargh!

and once again, because of her total self absorption, her focus on only what she is doing, she fucks up some plan or preparation of mine. and if i hadn't quizzed my brain-dead child about the survival of his emergency bus tickets he wouldn't have even thought of it himself. that irritates me too.

i know she was doing it to be nice, but it is still all about her. she quizzed him for a half-an-hour last night about wasn't he really happy she had washed his coat for him, and didn't this prove she was a good mother. that she was fixing the problem i had made by buying him a white coat. that i might make the "grand gesture" (her words) of buying him the coat, but she was the one who had to do the work to fix my mistake of buying that coat... "because your father never thinks about things like washing and care".

(she has had the issues with son for awhile about clothing. son wants a particular item and she doesn't. so she uses one of her many styles of trying to alter the choice, leading up to simple imposition of her own will as a last resort. both kids have complained about having no choice about their clothes)

anyway

that's my rant

i'm irritated

telling you this story has helped me understand why i'm cranky to this level over $12.50 - hell, it's only the price of a couple of premium martinis, or slightly less than lunch out (not that I do either often).

but now i have to (or son will have to) peel apart bus tickets, and then go see if the transit authority head office will accept the damaged tickets back and exchange them for good ones. or it will just be a loss of about $12.50.

i'm a little pissed this morning