I accidentally answered the phone the other day and encountered the dreaded bill collector.

May I speak to Gerald?
There’s nobody here by that name.
May I speak to Debra?
This is she.
Oh, but you don’t know who Gerald is?
Yes I do but he’s not available at this number.
Do you know a number where he might be available?
Nope, we’ve been divorced for almost three years and I don’t have a number.

Blah blah blah, she exhausted every question possible about how to located him or if I knew where he was working or how much he made, etc. Then she started in on me and I gave her the barest minimum in responses.

(Here comes the good part.)

She: So after your necessary bills you have about $1000 left over a month so you could afford to make some sort of payment on this debt, right?
Me: Not really, I still have other bills and I do have to eat.
She: Well, what do you spend your money on? Cable TV and Internet? Eating out all the time? You could go with the basic plans and save money and stop going out and wasting money.
Me? Seriously? You’re suggesting I sit in the dark and eat Ramen so I can afford to make payments on a vehicle I no longer have? What kind of good-effort payments did you have in mind?
She: Even $25-50 a month would go a long way in clearing up your credit.
Me: DO YOU HAVE ANY IDEA HOW LONG IT WOULD TAKE TO PAY OFF $14,000 WITH $25 A MONTH PAYMENTS? I’d be dead of boredom and starvation long before the first grand was paid off. No thanks, my credit is so far down in the crapper that the world’s best plumber couldn’t dredge it up.
She: So I should just put you down as refusing to negotiate?

Duh.

My position on being a deadbeat: It’s the business or bank’s responsibility to NOT give me credit. If they’re careless enough to throw away their money, why is it my responsibility to give it back? And with interest? What a rip-off! I made enough car payments to pay off the actual price of that car. It’s not my fault they chose to apply my payments to their interest scam first, and then when the car exploded and got ran over and repossessed it wasn’t worth enough to get the rest of their money. Price of doing business, yo.

Now with people it’s different. I hand someone money and I never expect to get it back, then when I do it’s a bonus, right? If someone hands me money and it’s a loan, I pay them back as soon as possible. (Thanks Mom, did you get my check yet?) People are people and I don’t renege on people. Just businesses.

Anyway, I told her not to bother calling me when she got further down the list and found the loan on his truck that we defaulted on too. Let it go beyotch, we ain’t paying. Blood out of a turnip and all that.

There is. A big ugly as we call it, means something ugly happened and we need to talk about it, or deal with it, or bury it in the backyard.

It’s really personal, so if you’re just a random Debbie’s kinda funny reader ya might wanna skip this one.

Ready?

A couple of months ago Ginnie mentioned that Brittany (my niece who lived with us for a couple of her emotional teenage years) told her a big ugly. That Buck had touched her (at least once) inappropriately. That’s about all I got… you know getting information second-hand isn’t something you act upon. My first thought was bullshit, then well… maybe who knows right? Thousands of spouses always say NEVER! So I suggested to Ginnie that she maybe ask her girlfriends in a round-about way if anything he did made them uncomfortable. Other than him just being himself; he always made the kid’s friends nervous.

And then it festered in the back of my mind and I mentioned it to a few close friends.

So… Casey and Kira and Ginnie went to their father’s for Thanksgiving. Apparently the liquor was flowing freely and when Ginnie’s boyfriend Roger went to pick her up TheNewWife kept him busy chatting and then told him to leave, meanwhile Buck kept Ginnie distracted until she was so drunk she passed out.

Then sometime in the middle of the night he crept in and groped her. His own daughter. Complete what the fuckage. She said she pretended to be asleep and kind of moved away and waited a few minutes til he left the room. Then went out and told him she needed to go home RIGHT NOW. He said he was too drunk to drive (which come to find out he was) but she didn’t care and he brought her home.

What the hell happened to the man I married? This person, this THING he is now is so not anything like he was then. I could have never imagined he would act this way. I don’t understand it. FUCK blaming it on the drink. Does the constant drinking just make it easier for him to violate common decency?

So we don’t really know what to do. She’s not going to raise a stink about any of it. She’d rather just never get anywhere near him again than be all confrontational. And with it being all she-said and he’ll-deny…

I know you read just about everything I post, so here’s your head’s up. If I ever see your miserable face again you son of a bitch, I’ll scratch your fucking eyes out. Fuck with my kids again? I’ll pay someone to cut your dick off and feed it to you. I have lots of friends now, someone will know someone. And the moment I have some sort of proof or evidence or something other than her word against yours, your ass is fucked you PRICK! Vengeance is mine sayeth the Mom. I hope you rot in your bottle. All that drinking can’t be doing much for your new wife… that OR your tiny useless dick… but do you have to get your thrills from your own daughter? WHAT THE FUCK IS WRONG WITH YOU?

Even I have stuff I can’t talk about. For instance there’s a couple of horrible bullshit things going on in my life over the last couple of weeks and you haven’t heard anything from me.

One will be resolved this Thursday, hopefully. If not, I’ll be blowing up here and you’ll know about it then. If all goes as planned, you won’t ever need to know. Cryptic enough?

The other will be an ongoing . . . I hate to use the word investigation but questioning? Checking out?  Someone told me something criminal/evil/horrible about my ex that doesn’t compute. So I’m planning to ask around if this “thing” had happened with other people – for corroborating evidence sort of – because I’m not completely sure about the accuser. Not that I don’t believe, but I don’t disbelieve either. I don’t know. So I’ll be asking around as soon as I figure out how to approach the subject. Tricky. The thing is, even if it’s true there’s not a lot I can do about it now. Except blow up here, right? So if there’s corroborating evidence, then you’ll hear all about it. Again, cryptic enough?

See, I can be circumspect when I need to be.

WHAT THE FUCK IS WRONG WITH YOU!!!!????!!!!!

Dude, you’re screwing this up.

Shall I go back to your only granddaughter’s birthday party you didn’t bother to attend?

Or that your daughter wanted to spend some time with you on her 18th birthday and you were too busy? The whole fucking weekend? And then you send her a birthday card in the goddamn mail. A birthday card. You live less than 5 miles away and you couldn’t be bothered to make time for her?

SHE WAS CRUSHED!

You know how sensitive she is. And yet you not only send a stupid card with an old dead $20 bill, you sign it from both you and your new girlfriend. Whom she’s barely met. The same woman you once put on the phone to berate your daughter for something that had nothing to do with her. Beyond tacky.

You can’t take the time to drop in to her work (do you even know where she works now?) or make a date or get together in some way?

I know you’re still bitter but you remember those classes we had to take (and you really should know this without a class) where they EMPHASIZED you don’t take your ex-spouse feelings out on your kids. EVER!

I don’t trash talk you to the kids, I do it elsewhere. Wish I could say the same for you. You want to know why they barely talk to you? Think about it. You’re doing this to yourself. I encourage them to call you, to try and make plans because it’s the right thing to do. But when you do bother to answer the phone, you’re either too busy to make a date or you trash me. Fucking get over it and try, TRY to be a father.

Do you even care your son is back in Iraq? Did you make any effort when he was here? Have you made any effort at ALL with any of them? And to keep trying, considering they barely had a relationship with you when we were together.

It’s not their place to make the effort. You’re their father. It’s your fucking JOB!

Well, I sure hope you’re enjoying whatever it is you are doing. It ain’t parenting.

I don’t want anything special from anyone, I just want stuff to be done the way it’s supposed to be done.

Our child support check is a week late so far. I don’t know if it’s because of the company he works for screwing up or if it’s the government agency that forwards it to my account. It’s bullshit either way. Court ordered automatic deduction electronically deposited into my account. How frakking hard can it be? Seems like every time there’s a holiday the ball gets dropped and we get screwed.

Shit.

I hadn’t heard anything from the body shop about the Freelander, so I called them yesterday. More bullshit.

I’d left the car where it died and notified Wells Fargo they should come and get it.
They never did.
Some old fart crashed into it.
Wells Fargo tells me I have to get it fixed, THEN they’ll repossess.
Old Farts’s insurance (USAA) has it towed to Auto Body World – where Buck works.
I sign release papers at Auto Body World, am told completely covered with no deductible.
Time passes.
I finally called ABW Friday and the MANAGER gets on the phone (with an attitude)
I’m told they haven’t done shit because I’m not the registered owner.
Buck is the registered owner (because his name – as the husband – comes up as the registered owner) and he refuses to sign anything.
Wells Fargo called ABW a while ago to verify the location of the car but hasn’t called back or returned call.
WTF? Now what?

I will say once I had the conversation with Manager, he chilled on the attitude quite a bit. He’d misunderstood a few factoids. Other guy’s company is paying for repairs, not mine. And only for the damage done in THAT accident, not the creasing down the side. ABW knew about previous damage because Ginnie had taken the car in to show her father and Manager thought I was trying to claim all the damage against USAA – which I specifically discussed with the lady I signed the car in. I’m an honest person! I wonder where he got the impression I was condoning insurance fraud.

He says WF will have to negotiate with USAA for direct payment because Manager judges car beyond repair. I suppose I have to chat with WF now – dread dread dread – and those conversations never go well.

Why can’t people just do what they’re supposed to do? I’m being honest and doing what I can and yet everyone seems to think I’m some sort of crook.

I did go out last night with my friends. We started out at Papago Brewing Co. The party was supposed to be around six people and somehow 3 times that showed up. We had a great time!

Evo posted this on Brightkite: Debbie is looking for single middle aged men who know how to have a good time. Buy her a Strongbow. Easy-peasy.

And some guy actually did! Of course, he handed me the drink and promptly walked away, but I got a free Strongbow out of it anyway. After that CJ, Dan, Jack and I ended up at another place for Karaoke. I really need to find one song I can do so I can join in. I sing really well when I’m singing along, but without that other voice I’m not sure I can stay on key. It’s been a long time since I sang solo. On the way out we saw this:

Santa has pink balls!

Your child turns 18 and what do you do? Maybe a party, maybe not. At least a dinner celebration? A gift or two? 18 is a pretty big deal, right?

I gave Ginnie my ring that I’ve had forever. My ring to her – meaningful.
I bought her the t-shirt she really wanted so she’d have at least one present to unwrap.
I paid for and went with her for her first tattoo. Again, what she really wanted.

She wanted to have a meal with her father. She wanted to spend time with him on her birthday. Was he available? No. “Work” and then some other reason (blamed on me) that he couldn’t take the time. He hasn’t bothered to call her since. In today’s mail was a birthday card and $20.

She’s crushed. Not so much about the $20, but because a card pretty much shows her what she means to him.

She told me yesterday that she’s afraid to call him because all he does is bitch about me. You know, he took the same so-called parenting class I did before we divorced. #1 RULE IS DON’T INVOLVE THE KIDS IN YOUR ISSUES!

I can’t believe I spent most of my adult life with this man. If he doesn’t reach out to these kids pretty soon (and do it without trashing me) he’s going to lose them. I don’t think Max gives a damn any more, Casey and Ginnie mostly avoid calling him because of how he talks about me . . . and can’t just get over it all. He’s got a woman living with him! How does SHE put up with this hate and anger?

All I can say to Ginnie is that I love her and someday he’ll be sorry he treated the kids this way. It’s all his choice. I’m not doing anything to make matters worse (though I seem to get blamed for everything anyway) and I’m certainly not going to do anything to help him out. He’s sinking all on his own.

So Friday morning Casey and I went to this used tire place to get . . . reassurance? He knows a guy who knows a guy and they cut us a break. I’d budgeted $120 for a new tire (for a car I hope to unload pretty damned soon) and ended up paying $25 on a fairly new tire. Except it wasn’t the one “damaged” in my hit-n-run, it was the one on the other side that was so bald there was no tread left. The “damaged” tire we found out was fine once he got it up on a jack. And guess what! My car doesn’t shimmy and grind anymore. For the moment anyway. Now Ginnie can stop angsting about the car.

And here I was thinking I was about $100 bucks up right? No such luck. Ginnie came home from school with a couple of envelopes: one for a class ring and one for her announcements/cap & gown. Order due TODAY. We’re passing on the overpriced announcements and went with a Senior 2009 sweatshirt and her cap & gown and tassel. There goes my extra $. And we’ll check out Walmart for a class ring next check. She’s happy. Good thing my kid is thrifty. Seriously, I told her we’d manage to get everything she really wanted and it all worked out. They had a “hers” package and a “his” package and the “his” package came with a free large Senior mug. Now, tell me. What exactly is a Senior male expected to put IN his large mug? Coffee? Riiiiiight.

At some point we need to sit down and make a list of who she’d send announcements to anyway. Would we even need 50? And get her portraits done. I reminded her about moo cards and how much nicer they are than those plain old name cards. Seriously, what do people DO what all that crap when they receive a graduation announcement? Maybe if it’s someone you care about you might throw it in a desk drawer never to be seen again. Waste waste waste. We’ll do some announcements and the slightly more useful moo cards but I’m not doing the tissue inserts and stupid name cards and deluxe inner envelopes and envelope seals, etc. What a rip-off.

Saturday, I printed out a draft copy of the PodcampAZ program I’ve been working on and went to the work up. After that I went to a friend’s birthday party and observed people playing Rock Band, until the kids took over. It annoyed me to no end that these 8-11 year old kids were basically beating the shit out of the equipment and nobody reigned them in. I’ve heard those drums and guitars break easily so I hope nothing was broken. What happened to parenting? I do believe indulgence is killing us all. From bratty kids to Wall Street players. And speaking of parenting . . .

Buck wasn’t answering his phone Sunday, so Casey called me with the all-clear to go to Kira’s birthday party. His loss. That Girl was there with her new boyfriend and twin babies and you could tell she was getting pissed when nobody would talk to her. Were I her, I be happy they didn’t talk to me . . . and tell me exactly what they thought of me. I was proud of Casey’s friends that they were civil and didn’t kick the bitch’s ass. And those are some unfortunate looking babies, let me tell you. Fat with big heads. Poor kids. Kira made out like a bandit and had a great time though she was so over-stimulated and tired that she could barely focus. Screamed bloody murder in fear of the piñata.

And that was my weekend. I’ve turned into a cranky old lady.

That Girl is at it again.

10/30/07 – Speaking of not needing this shit, I’ve had contact with the Daughter-in-Law. Apparently her long disappearance can be attributed to going back to prison to finish out her parole violation and now she’s legally free and clear of that. And wants to see her daughter. I gave Casey her phone number and told him to call her. I so don’t want to get in the middle of that but she’s asking me to. She wants me to mediate between them because “I’m so blunt and calm and honest” and all they do is fight.

11/8/07 – Uncomfortable phone conversation with DIL. She’s getting impatient and a bit bitchy but I’m not driving this kid all the way to Phoenix again to find her. She needs to come halfway. And she needs to stop stretching the truth to make her actions look better and accusing Casey of hiding Kira. Just because he moved that doesn’t mean he did it to spite her.

1/10/08 – Just for the record, Kira’s “real” mom just came and picked her up for a couple of days. Casey’s trusting her so I will.

(The one and only time she’s bothered to come get her.)

Anyway, there was a tentative plan to take Kira over there yesterday morning, but he hadn’t verified and I didn’t want to drive her all the way up there and have them not be there. Her apartment is 2 miles from the studio. Last weekend That Girl was supposed to have her and called with a whole my-tummy-hurts-I’m-going-to-the-hospital bullshit again and backed out. She frakking called me at 2:00 am last night wanting to know where Casey and Kira were and why I didn’t bring her up there. Bitch. NOT MY FUCKING RESPONSIBILITY. I just logged onto Myspace and there’s another nasty note there regarding how bad we’re treating her. To which I replied:

Actually, I had plans and couldn’t drive him. Remember he doesn’t have access to a car and you do. And from what he tells me, you’re the one who usually cancels. As far as not answering your calls, he’d left his phone in Daniel’s car and when I spoke to him this morning he was pissed because you’d call everyone. Stop whining and set up some real plans and follow through. You’re certainly not going out of your way to make this any easier. If you wanted her, you’d find a way.

Debbie.

I’m too damned nice.

Speaking of lousy parenting. Fucktard called Ginnie yesterday and insisted they go to the movies and said he’d be there at 9:15 last night to take her out. She canceled other plans and then he didn’t show, didn’t call and hasn’t answered the 8 times she’s called him to find out WTF. AFAIK he hasn’t bothered to contact her today to explain, either. Way to go, Papa.

My economic recovery deposit arrived this morning. First thing I did was hand Ginnie $100. She’s been great about not asking Mom for money so I thought of her first.

Second, I bought my ticket for Jonathan Coulton on Thursday night. The plan is to attend machinegirl‘s recital and go from there. I can’t wait!

The Ex has been filling her head again. More shit about the car and how I need to catch up on the payments (I am, thankyouverymuch) and I should be giving her the child support checks and that she file to be an independent minor. The man is stupid. Child support has been explained to him numerous times and he refuses to understand it. Get over it asshole.

So I ask her:

If you’re an independent minor, where are you going to live? I don’t have to support you anymore, right? Your father has a one-bedroom apartment so you can’t move in with him and he HATES your boyfriend. What kind of advice is that to suggest you move out so he doesn’t have to pay child support anymore? You want to be independent? You’ll have to pay rent if you stay here.

Seriously! I try try try not to disparage him in front of the kids but he doesn’t hesitate at all to slam me sideways. It’s frakking difficult to explain where he’s wrong without using a snarky tone of voice. And I usually tell her to ask any other parent out there, that way it’s not just my word against his. Why must I always take the high road?

Grrrrr

I’ve been trying to get out this week and walk more. Wednesday I literally dragged Kira up to the Sonic around the corner and back again. I had to drag the stroller backwards to keep her out of the sun, because stupid Grammi forgot all about sunscreen. That’s about a mile round trip in 83°F for a lunch the little brat didn’t even want to eat. By the time I got back, my right arm was shaking from the strain and it’s still sore.

Yesterday we went up to Superstition Springs Mall after I dropped Ginnie off at school. I like to go up early and let her play before the place really opens and I parked at the opposite end of the mall from the play area. At about an hour, some guy mentioned the Kids Club concert in a bit. I (stupidly) decided to hang around for another 45 minutes for that. I remember Persephone from when Ginnie was younger and we’d go to to City of Mesa events. Apparently she’s with Westcor now. Even children’s performers need to pay the bills I guess.

Kira was NOT having fun and seriously did NOT want that Dewper guy in a beaver? costume anywhere near her. We might try that again, but wait until it starts to get there instead of expecting an 18-month-old to be patient and sit still. I dumped her with one of Casey’s friends for the night so I could get some things done around here.

I should probably walk today, but I’m just not up for it. Yup, I’m lazy. For some odd reason every flea my daughter’s stupid dog has dragged home is living in my bedroom, eating my feet. He’s not even allowed in here and yet I have five flea bites on my left foot. Plus a few on my arms. I sprayed last night so hopefully I’ve killed them off. Or maybe they’ll eat my right foot tonight and I’ll have to kill the dog. I hate that damned dog.