girlfiend

I know that the beginning of this story doesn’t have much to do with the end but it’s all related in my head and right now I’m so angry I can’t really separate it. So bear with me.

Let’s start with my mother’s tenant. She rented her (furnished! more on this in a minute) apartment to some guy for a lot less money than she wanted because some Japanese businessman backed out at the last minute. The first time she went into the apt after the guy took the lease she found a dog, an extra bed, and a huge mess. She was pissed, but let it go.

Fast forward to last month. She went back into the apartment to look at things and found furniture and lamps missing and a bigger mess. She looked at some bills out on the table and saw a woman’s name. She left a note and the woman, a nurse in the apartment for three months, called back and said she was renting the place through an agency. My mother was furious and distraught over her missing furniture.

Months ago, when she told me she planned on renting the place furnished I told her she was out of her fucking mind. She’s got thousands of dollars worth of furniture in that tiny little studio. Renovating the place took forever and cost her a fortune. Boyfiend and I went in to pick up a few things she didn’t have room in her car for the night before the guy’s lease started. She seriously left everything. A stocked refrigerator and freezer, booze, saran wrap and tin foil, expensive framed prints, silk pillows, everything.  I called her annoyed that she was leaving so much stuff behind. She told me she didn’t care about any of it.

Until she learned that the guy is subletting. Now she cares. Because he’s making money off of her stuff she was in tears with fury. I told her not to do anything stupid and Boyfiend hooked her up with a lawyer/realtor he works for. The lawyer found out the dude is making $700 a month off of her place so she evicted him. Now she’s got no tenant and she’s stuck paying the mortgage on two places with the money she makes on her pension. This past weekend she moved back into the city for a while.

Since she’s here she decided to take the Fiendling, by bus, to the Franklin Institute to see some train exhibit and go out to lunch. She imagined it being some special grandmother/grandson field trip with lots of food she imagines I won’t allow him to eat and lots of toys she knows I won’t buy him in the overpriced gift shop.

Today was the big day. I never psych him up for things in advance because disappointment is huge and loud when you’re 2 1/2 so I didn’t even tell him until this morning. Then she called at 9 and said that there was no train exhibit. It’s only there for the holiday. Instead of taking him out she wanted to come here and just babysit him instead.

I said absolutely not and went to the Franklin Institute website. I don’t know what special train exhibit she was talking about but the train I remember from when I was there as a kid is still there. She probably just didn’t feel like going.  Even though it is a huge pain in the ass for me to pack both kids into the car in the rain, drive to my mom’s, drive back here, go back to her place to pick him up, and head all the way out to Conshohocken to my cousin’s at the start of rush hour, I told her that she should take him anyway.

I said he was eating breakfast and the baby was napping so we’d probably leave within the hour. It was about 9. 15 at the time. I got him to her place by 10.30. I handed my mother a small bag that she can fit in her purse with a few disposable diapers (since I know she doesn’t know what to do with the cloth), some wipes, a small snack and a sippy cup. She looked at the bag and told me that she was just going to leave it at the front desk and get it when they return from the museum. I wanted to grab her and smack her, but instead I explained that he’s not potty trained, not by any stretch of the imagination. If he took a crap in his diaper he would have to stand in it while waiting for the bus then sit in it on the bus home. I told her that she has to take the diapers and the wipes and the cup and the snack. Then I left hoping for the best.

I didn’t hear from her again until 2. She called and told me that they were back, the Fiendling was resting on her couch watching TV and that I should come pick him up. The baby was napping and I had no intention of waking him so I waited until he was awake, fed and changed and got into the car. She called again at 3 to ask where I was and I told her I’d be there in 5 minutes. When I got there they were waiting in the lobby. He was happy to see me and thrilled about the new trains she bought him at the museum. She told me they had a great time. They took the bus there, a cab back (no car seat!), and she changed his diaper.

On our drive to my cousin’s I asked him about his day. He didn’t have much to say about it but told me about the new toys she bought him. I asked him what they ate for lunch. He told me he saw candy. I pressed further- did you eat any candy. No, he just saw it. It was red and green and white. I asked if he ate french fries. No. Grilled cheese. No. Pizza. No. Pretzels. No. At this point I started to panic. It was 3.30. I’d dropped him off five hours ago. She told me she was going to take him out for lunch but when she described the day when I picked him up there was no mention of lunch. Could it be possible?  I called.

I asked her where she took him for lunch. She told me she didn’t. I asked her what she fed him. She told me she didn’t. He wasn’t hungry. He wasn’t hungry!  I said okay and hung up before my head exploded.

She had my son, my 2 1/2 year-old underweight son, her grandson, for close to five fucking hours and she didn’t feed him? She was responsible for my baby. I let her take him into the city without me. I trusted her with my son and she didn’t feed him because he said he wasn’t hungry? He ate breakfast at 9 and it was close to 4 and my poor kid hadn’t eaten all day long.

At my cousin’s he ate grapes, carrots and a hot dog. Then he ate some noodles and a few lollipops. Then he ate pizza, a cookie, some cake and another lollipop. We got home and he ate another hot dog. My mother’s head is so far up her ass sometimes it’s a wonder I survived my childhood.