Shafted Again

I've been shafted. Again. And yes, this will be a me griping about how I hate the world entry, so feel free to ignore it.

So last night my Mom left to go pick up my sister from her last day of babysitting all this week. And my sister decided to use her money to go out to eat with my Mom for my Mom's b-day. I was ok with that. I bought my Mom a computer game (and watch but note that no one else has gone shopping for her) but before she (my Mom that is) left she warned me that Eddie was coming over this weekend because my Mom had volunteered to watch him.

I can't stand Eddie. No rational being can. He's loud. He's obnoxious. He's not very smart and says completely ridiculous things that everyone else knows to be wrong but he insists are accurate. But what could I do? Nothing. It's not like I'm asked if it's ok with me if he comes over. And even if it was, I couldn't say no. It's not my house, nor my rules. However, when Eddie does come over it affects me perhaps the most.

This is because 1) I get kicked out of my bed. Eddie has to sleep in a bed -- we're SO not going into why. And Brian's is the only one that's not elevated (note: Laura's is also not elevated but you can Bet your booties that she wouldn't let him even touch her bed. hahaha scratch that. She won't even let him touch the door to her room) Thus Brian has to give up his bed so Eddie can sleep in it. So that means I end up giving up my bed so Brian can have my mine and I get shifted to the couch. And let me explain something. I love my bed. I don't like anyone besides me to be on my bed unless a)I consider them immaculately clean or b) I trust them not to mess up. Brian is neither. Sure he's cleaner than Eddie or Patrick but he totally messes it up and I frequently find sand INSIDE my sleeping bag afterwards because Brian often decides to wear his clothes to bed -- without changing into pjs... *shudder* But I have no choice. I'm the one sharing the bedroom with the boys, I'm the one that gets shafted.

Now this in and of itself causes... problems. To say the least. Example: if I get tired around 11:30 because of my stupid pendulum sleep habits (sorry, hard to explain that online) but my Dad's only woken up half an hour ago, I will get stuck staying up until he is ready to go upstairs. This is heavily unfair but again, there is nothing I can do about it. I cannot sleep with the tv or lights on and my Dad likes to catch up on the news. And really, it's not his fault that his sleeping schedule is even more out of wack than mine. But there are other hazards to sleeping downstairs (which Leanne can tell is so very true.) and that brings me to point 2.

2) Eddie is loud. He also likes to wake people up in the morning because he doesn't like to be lonely. So he gets my brothers up early on the weekends (which they actually do a lot anyhow) and then they're all running around downstairs, upstairs, in the basement, turning on the tv, attempting to play Nintendo or the computer and doing 101 things to wake others up. Sure it's not intentional. They're just thoughtless idiots. It still only leaves me with 5 hours of sleep and let me tell you. Again, part of this fantastic disease that sucks the life out of me is that if I don't get at least 8 hours of sleep I get incredibly sick the rest of the day. (ie, migraines, muscle sore, just plain sickness feeling... it bites.) And let's not even go into what happens when my Dad decides that he too is going to get up in the morning. At least the runts my Mom (if she's awake which doesn't happen often on weekends) can kick out. My Dad is going deaf so turns up the tv and all too often puts on something screwy and odd-ball like Mystery Science Theater 3000. And tv not only prevents me from getting to sleep, but it also wakes me up. And I know I'm whiney and obnoxious about this but seriously. If I don't get at least 8 (and I need 9-10 to be at a decent functional level) hours of sleep I get REALLY REALLY sick. And you know, if it wasn't for the insomnia, fine whatever, I'd go take naps. But my insomnia is such that I haven't been able to take naps with medicines since I was 3 and now that my insomnia is HEAVILY blown out of proportion naps are impossible pretty much no matter how freaking tired I am. So when I'm woken up. That's it. I'm woken up. There's no getting back to sleep. No naps. No nothing. I'm just sick the rest of the day. And let me just say that I REALLY think my being healthy-ish for a good 14 hours really should take precendence over 2 hours of entertainment. But maybe that's just me. Maybe I really am selfish as they say.

3) I mentioned he's loud right? Well guess who gets the majority of the migraines in this family and thus is affected the most by sound? Indeed. And it's not like I can get him to shut up. No one can. If he's quiet an entire 5 minutes it means he's either lost his voice or someone has duct-taped his mouth really well.

4) If my Mom gets lucky enough to be able to take a nap (like she is now) then guess who gets to watch him? I can assure you since both my Dad and my sister stayed locked up in their rooms it's me. 100% me. Babysitting Eddie is every babysitters worst nightmare. He's loud, he's hyper, he's non-stop hungry, he likes to run around and accidentally wreck things, he gets in fights with younger kids (both my brothers but actually in this case, Laura too whenever she comes out from hiding) he's rude, crude, socially unacceptable, and you don't get paid for watching him. Paid? Try even a thank-you. Ouch *whiplash* Shafted again.

5) Because Laura can hide in her room and Patrick can hide a book and both my parents can hide in their room. That leaves me and Brian. In this case I give credit to Brian. He usually finds a way to deal. Me? Not so much. If I'm at the computer writing, Eddie has to know every single little thing I'm writing. (haha he's upstairs bugging Pat out of his book at the moment. The little twerp.) If I'm playing a game he wants to know how to play it, if he can play it and then when I tell him no either tries to bug so much that I give in (as if. I live with Laura for God's sake.) or tell me HOW to play my game. If I'm watching tv he tries to change the channel or make fun of ANY show or movie. If I'm outside blowing bubbles he comes out and purposely tries to prevent my stream of bubbles. I'm painting something... well we're not even GOING there and you can get the idea.

The only way you can deal with Eddie is to take him somewhere and let loose his energy. Unfortunately, there are not too many places he hasn't been... um kicked out of that are places he'd be willing to go. And since he's 14 (hahaha ... he's a 7 year old mentally because of his autism but technically he's 14) he considers hismelf to cool to go do things that would ACTUALLY burn his energy, like playgrounds/parks etc. So my Mom usually ends up taking him and my brothers someplace like Chuckie Cheese (luckily there's 3 around us so whenever he does kicked out of one, by the time they go BACK to it, they've gotten new employees.) or some sort of museum. This provides my sister, me and my Dad with some hours of peace. Until they come back. *sigh* And today my Mom is sleeping.

Anyways now that I'm done with my Eddie angst, back to being shafted last night. So lucky me I had to a) watch my brothers, b) make sure said brothers ate, and did homework before watching tv or playing games (why must the Gods torment me thusly?) c) make sure Pat got his eardrops, d) get them to bed by 9 (and like all "little" boys they consider a 9:00 bedtime FAR too early -- heh so do I, but not my house, not my rules -- so actually getting them to even move from downstairs is a struggle in and of itself) and now e) watch Eddie along with my already rambunxious brothers. And I'd like to go on the record again by saying, did I get paid? Of course not. This is what big sisters do. They don't get paid for being family. And besides, my loving parents buy me my food (there's hardly any food I'm not allergic to, right now in this house besides Ramen soup and hidden bags of Easter candy) my clothes, and give me a house to live in.

lol. Don't get me wrong. I love my parents. And they are wicked nice to me -- more than my other siblings just because I'm agreeable, don't complain straight to them too often, (heh. I could complain and whine about doing anything they asked me just once a day and it still would be less than any of my siblings since they complain each time they're asked to do anything. Which adds up to about 3-7 times a day) and do what I'm asked to -- without complaining. But it bugs me to no end to be stuck watching Eddie without being asked. Forced into it... it's really not so much fun. And I did get a thank-you last night at least. Granted, nothing else (except to be stuck downstairs.) but whatever. A LITTLE bit of shafting never hurt anyone. It's the lots of shafting that bugs me.

Like when my Dad came down and wouldn't let me sleep till he'd finished the news and as much as he wanted to watch of Jay Leno. Like the fact that Laura owes me money, got $75 last night (for the entire week of babysitting) and spent it with my Mom (leaving me to babysit -- without being asked) and then bought 2 SETS of cds, effectively blowing a week of work in 2 virtually meaningless hours. Like that they all went off to breakfast this morning, woke me up two seconds before they left to tell me they were leaving (I appreciate the knowledge but not at 7 in the morning after only 4 hours of sleep) and then left, Eddie replacing me. Ouch. Shafted again. *whiplash cracking sound* As it was, after they'd left, they'd already woken me up so I tried going back to sleep for an hour, gave up and had to get up. grrrrrr

Also, my brother recently got a D&D kit thing for his B-Day. So he and my Dad promised to play D&D this weekend. Instead they played Thursday night, didn't inform me and now Pat has an inner ear infection and so is in bed reading my books (which are getting in worse condition every day... *wince*) and my Dad and Brian took the upstairs computer (which I was going to use for editing my book.) to play Civ 3. Meaning they left me out Thursday (shafted! *whip cracks again*) and they're completely SKIPPING it this weekend. And my Mom sister has gone back to bed. My Mom has taken the couch for a nap. Which leaves me and Eddie. Like I said, Eddie is fortunately bugging Pat. But if they get remotely louder, I have to go break them up. Shafted. *whiplash*

I'd also like to go on the record saying that my Mom and I went out and bought a waterproof mailbox, which has to be screwed into the railing. I have to set up but first she said she wanted to paint it with me. Yesterday morning she'd said she wanted to paint it with me that night, Laura came home from school with her own plans, mine get shafted, and then when my Mom gets back at 10:00 from hanging with Laura she went to bed. Shaf-ted. And it's not that I want all of this to be me me me me. Really. I just want to be at the very least included on the fun stuff and not forced to do the icky stuff so that the others can DO their fun stuff.

And it makes me really upset because this kind of thing has been happening since I was in 3rd grade. It's part of my Mom's group punishment, group reward system. Sure it worked, because I was doing all the kid's work; all the bloody time. And now everything in that area is utter chaos because none of them are willing to do their share of the responsibility as they are CONVINCED that they do more than their share of work.

Take Laura. Her job is to wash dishes. And as we don't have a dishwasher, this is a much bigger job than a normal washing the dishes, so I will give her credit. However, she only does her job about once every three days, perhaps once a day during the weekends (when there are more dishes.) She complains like hell about it, refuses to do it the first time she's told because she HATES being told to do ANYTHING. (such a bratty teenager) and even then tries to take control over the situation by saying, "I won't do it now. I'll do it in an hour" except that of course, an hour later she forgets. Whatever. This is understandable and to an extent excusable. HOWEVER; she has somehow gotten it into her head that all of her dish-washing makes her Cinderella and that she works her butt off cleaning every single hour of every day that she's not in school. Except of course, she doesn't always do the dishes, dishes will frequently not be done for several days and Cinderella never ever complained to her family members ABOUT doing the work. Whereas Laura bites people's head off about it.

And Brian has picked up both Patrick and Laura's bad habits and throws a tantrum if he is so much as asked to bring a laundry basket upstairs. God forbid that he should actually bend over, pick up and carrying his own freaking clothes. *eyeroll*

So yeah. This behaviour isn't new. It's old. It's repetitious. I am shafted, and it's just the way it goes. For the most part I've given up on the shafting except on some things here and there that happen daily and really really really affect me. Then I fight back. I deserve some rights. I don't have my own room, my own space, or much of my own anything as anything I do own is borrowed and very often, nearly ruined... (except usually my clothes. Only Brian can actually fit into any of my clothes and even then, not often) So if I want at least one of the computers for homework even though they're both being played upon, well then I'm gonna fight back. Ditto on Inuyasha. It's only half of the week and at midnight (actually 12:30 now, they changed it) and my Dad watches FAR more sports (canceling out other programing) so if I want Inuyasha instead of the news, I will insist on getting it.

*deep breath.* I can't wait to go to college. And even then no matter which college I go to, when I come home for the holidays, I'm going to see if my Grandparents will let borrow their home as part of my own. At my grandparents' I am never ever shafted. I love my grandparents. :-D

So I'm hungry now. And also a little depressed. And I want to play Baldur's Gate. But hypothetically I should work on my werewolf story. *makes a face* In any case I'm sick of feeling sorry for myself. It's annoying me. lol. So I'm out