Thanks to my friend MJR for the cool title for this rant!
My mother is driving me absolutely out of my mind.
First, 2 hours before my colonoscopy on May 18 2011 she calls me all bent out of shape because she can’t find phone numbers or addresses for two of our cousins (her first cousins, my second cousins). Now was there any pressing reason she needed to talk to these people? Of course not!
She got extremely mad at me because I refused to try to find these people until after my colonoscopy.
Then she insisted that I had told her that a friend of mine who was taking me to the hospital for my colonoscopy would call her after the procedure was over (I never said any such thing) and when I refused to give her the phone number (for one thing, I didn’t even have the number yet) she went off so badly I finally hung up on her.
So the colonscopy is over, I get home about 4 pm and I call my mother. The very first thing I said was that I couldn’t talk very long because my cell phone needed to be recharged (I have explained to her numerous times that cell phones are not like landline phones and that I cannot use the phone when the battery is being recharged).
She blathered on and on about my cousins (she’d miraculously found them between 9 am and 4 pm); I said more than once I needed to hang up so I could fix myself some soup (mind you, I’d had nothing to eat other than jello and chicken broth for three days at that point). She said “I don’t like soup” (I thought who cares what YOU like, you are 350 miles away, and YOU aren’t eating it are you) and then my phone went dead.
The next day I get a voice mail from her accusing me of hanging up on her. I got mad –as stated, I’d repeatedly explained that once the battery dies on the cell phone, I cannot use it until it’s recharged — and didn’t talk to her for about 10 days.
So finally we started talking again. She insists we talk 3 times a week even though her only topics of conversation are her health, her doctor, her housekeeper, my cousin Fredia, and the other aforementioned cousins.
So I told her to not call me after 8:30 pm as I am in bed early these days (she was told this at least 3 times in the last 10 days).
I’ve been having serious insomnia for the last week or so; combine that with lots of exercise and I have been bloody exhausted by 8:00-8:30 (Wednesday night was the first night in at least a week that I got more than 4 hours of sleep).
Monday night she called at 9:30 pm; Wednesday night she called at 9:45 pm.
She’s also been told more times than I can remember that I do NOT get out of bed to answer the phone. I’ve tried being funny about it, because my father (her ex-husband) used to say “Oh you didn’t wake me up; I had to get out of bed to answer the phone” and I’ve tried being a total jackass about it (and everything in between). She refuses to get it!
I am in contact with a second cousin (her first cousin) who lives in the same town she does. My mother was driving this cousin mad before all this happened, but now my mother is telling my cousin that she thinks I’ve changed my phone number and not given her the new number (at this point I am tempted to change the cell phone number, the landline number, my address, and my name!!).
My mother also told my cousin that she called my landlord (unfortunately for me, my mother has a friend who lives in the same mobile home park I do–Jeannie gave my mother the park manager’s phone number the last time I wasn’t talking to my mother).
I am bloody sick of this woman invading my privacy over and over again.
She has told my grandmother, my great-aunt, my father, my cousins, and even my friends things that I told her in confidence (and yes I did say don’t tell anybody this and she agreed to keep it to herself).
When I object to the continued invasion of privacy, she says “You have no right to tell me what I can and can’t say to so-and-so.”
Well yes I DO have a right to tell you what you can and can’t say when you agreed to keep the information to yourself.
My mother is a gossip, a backstabber, and a liar–a bad combination.
I am also extremely fed up with not being listened to (or the next best thing, she takes what I say, twists it, and then uses it against me)