A Psychobrat Tale

Anyone for a Psychobrat story?

It happened when I was in the shower yesterday.  I had just gotten in and was in the process of shaving my legs, when, in the general direction of the front door, I heard some pounding and then a crash as it was thrown open.  Brother shouted, “Geez!” with genuine alarm in his voice.

My first thought was that one of Brother’s friends had broken in with a weapon.  Seriously, that’s what I thought.

Then I heard Psychobrat’s door thrown open, and a moment later, she was banging on the bathroom door and demanding, in screeching tones, that I get out of the shower immediately.  She had fifteen minutes to shower, get dressed, and dry her hair.

I kept shaving my legs and didn’t reply.

Psychobrat started kicking the door, attempting (I’m not assuming here–she really would have if pushed that far) to kick it down.  She also kept screaming about her emergency.

In a calm and rational tone, I said, “Shut the hell up.”

“NNNNOOOO!!!!!!!” she Exorcisted.  “I NEED TO GET IN THERE NOW!!!!!”

As she was still attempting to kick in the door, and I know that our house does, in fact, belong to this screechy 19-year-old, I sighed and did as she commanded.  I did it slowly, however, to cause her maximum irritation.

You might wonder why I put up with this.  There are a few reasons.  As Psychobrat must always be right and always have the last word, you cannot win with her.  Even if she deserves it, you can’t just punch her in the face and expect to not receive some form of retribution.  I would pay in dire ways.  And as I was in the shower, she had access to my bedroom, and thus everything that I own.  Everything, including the laptop on which I now complain.  Remember that scene in Little Women when Amy tears up Jo’s journal, and Jo loses all her valuable work?  Yeah, it’s exactly like that.  (In fact, I believe that exact thing happened to me quite a few years ago.  Or else I just always knew that it could happen to me, so I’m remembering it that way.)

There were numerous periods in the past, back when she (for reasons which never made much sense–something about her only owning one pair of jeans, which has never been true) did her laundry every single night, in which I would choose one day of the week (Saturday night–and I still do it the same way) to do my own laundry.  I would rearrange my entire Saturday schedule to avoid doing laundry at a time when she needed the washer, and yet somehow, as soon as my clothes were wet and soapy, it would suddenly be her time to use it, and I would be ordered to remove my clothes from the washer.  As I would never comply with this command, she would then remove them herself, drop them on the floor, and step all over them.  Fortunately, she no longer does laundry every single day, so I can actually do that with very little stress.

There have been many times when she would order me to get off the computer because she needed it, and when I would refuse (it didn’t matter if I was conversing with an old friend or writing an important essay), she would destroy something in my room or merely unplug the computer from the wall (which likely accounts for half of its problems today).

So no, it isn’t merely screaming that you have to put up with for not giving Psychobrat her way.  She’s destructive, and you pay for it.  Had she kicked in the door yesterday (and because she wasn’t getting her way, that is what it would have led to), that would have been my fault, for not instantly complying with the one who apparently had an emergency, when I didn’t have to be at work for another three hours.  Trust me–there’s no reason in this household.

Hence her nickname.

Anyway, so I stood there in my towel at the doorway, waiting for her to get out, and when I finally showered and got out myself, and got dressed, and headed back to the bathroom to put up my hair for work, I heard her through her bedroom door, talking to somebody on her cell phone.  (She said something about, “What kind of decent person would do something like that?” which I found a bit ironic.)

An hour later, she hadn’t left yet.  So yes, it could have all been avoided, but that doesn’t matter–the important thing is that the beast was satisfied, and peace could return to Canterville.

My dad asked me tonight how much it might cost for The Mormon and me to build an apartment at the back of our house.  I shall let the absurdity of that idea sink into your minds and not say another word about the matter.

Yesterday I was thinking about some of this stuff, and I started to feel sick to my stomach.  I’ve put up with this and much, much more for my entire life, usually quietly, because there’s really nothing I can do, which is why I keep all of my stress inside, which is probably why my brain started exploding randomly over Christmas break.  And now that I know that my family is literally giving me serious health issues, I am incensed.  They can take what they want away from me–sanity, quiet, freedom, what the hell ever–but now that they’ve fucked up my health…I can’t express how disgusted and infuriated I am.  The only thing left to do is get out, which we will do as quickly as possible.  The time has certainly come.

On a lighter note, here’s something I learned from last week’s crossword.  To “lave” means to bathe.  I had never heard the term before and had to look it up in the dictionary, but as soon as I saw it, it made complete sense.  “Lavish”–to lavish someone with praise, for example, means to bathe them in praise.  “Lavatory” (or “lav,” for short)–the British term for washroom.  It all comes from the same root word, “lav,” which I believe Oxford said was old French.

On a further suspicion, I looked up “laundry” and discovered that it comes from the same root.  I was so excited, and damn it, I really need to learn Latin!  I would thrive in that language.

I’ve obviously been reading a lot lately, with little else to do (although I have some things I intend to write and ought to get those underway).  I read some graphic novels:  Alan Moore’s The Killing Joke, for one.  I was surprised by the fact that this book actually made me almost sympathetic towards Joker.  I was really nervous at the end as he attempting to tell the killing joke, because he seemed to be stuttering, and I thought he might mess it up, and that would have been devastating for him, and I would have felt bad for the freaking Joker.  I was also amused by Batman’s reaction to it, and I was amused by the joke itself.  I laughed.

I read Arkham Asylum, by Grant Morrison, and it was this book that made me stop and consider for the first time ever how seriously creepy the Batman villains are.

Mark Millar’s Red Sun, in which Superman lands in Russia and is raised by Stalin as a Communist, was really insightful.  I love those Elseworld stories, when well-known characters are placed in totally different situations to see what they do.  They really make you think.  I was slightly annoyed by the ending, because there were two things that could have happened on that last page, and I would have done the other thing–but it was very good nonetheless.

And lastly I read Alan Moore’s Watchmen, which made me aware for the first time of just how much goes into writing comics; I couldn’t do it.  I mean, you’ve got to make sure that every panel matches up with the words, that it all balances out evenly.  In panels with multiple characters and lines of dialogue, you’ve got to ensure that the expressions on these characters’ faces match up with all of the dialogue.  And Alan Moore has the strongest grasp on parallelism–it’s incredible.

Now I’m reading C. S. Lewis’ Space Trilogy, and I’m really into it.  It’s very descriptive and lovely, and it seems to me that every thought Ransom has is something I had thought, and he wonders and observes the same things I feel I would wonder and observe were I in his situation.

I also just got through reading Animal Farm to Brother, because I knew he would enjoy it, and he really did.  He was satisfyingly creeped out by it, and when it was over I gave him a brief explanation of what it meant and was based on, and related it to V for Vendetta, which I know he has watched.  I also informed him of the existence of 1984, to hopefully instill an interest.  I do what I can.  He’s a smart kid; I just hope he realizes it one day.