(no subject)

[tedwords]

“A true friend never gets in your way unless you happen to be going down.” Arnold H. Glasgow

Thursday night, I had to cut out from work relatively early because we had a birthday dinner for Corb's brother Scott. We were going out for hibachi and it was just two of us, Scott and his wife Tina and Corb's mom. Scott is now at the age where the kids no longer wish to go.

Ah, hibachi! A chance for us to watch drunk people get sprayed with sake. How fun! We were seated next to one woman who the chef kept drying to soak in sake. She would run off screaming, every time it happened. She was with a mother and daughter combo who I suspect wooden legs. The daughter end of the combo was a petite blonde who had so much sake sprayed into her mouth that she left mid dinner to throw up. She also had just driven twelve hours from Florida to Massachusetts. Gee, I am sure that was a pleasant ride home.

Then there were the five of us. Scott was clearly up for the sake experience and being the birthday boy, willingly complied, like a seal with a bouncy ball, but the rest of us...well, I politely lifted my martini glass to my lips whenever he came close, as a defensive maneuver, Tina made it clear she wasn't gonna have any of that, and Corb's mom mimicked my martini maneuver. 

Probably for the best. She has had a lot on her mind lately. Her fiancee Jim is in the last stages of a slow and not very pleasant end of life process (I think I've written about that before), and her middle child, Greg, is planning to move back home from Kansas in about two weeks and it is literally absorbing her every waking hour. 

It's literally the parable of the prodigal son. Greg moved out there with a girlfriend/fiancee about five years ago, amidst a ton of celebration on the part of his mom, but about a year later, there was an allegation of an abusive incident and the girlfriend left him high and dry in Kansas, with no way home, so he has been there delivering pizza for all these years (take that, Dorothy).

And this past year, he has decided wants to come back home, and Corb's mom has been trying to move mountains to get him here. 

It's all she could talk about over hibachi. As Corb has said, when she gets an idea in her head, she's like a dog with a bone, so she spent her time the table trying to share his phone number with the lady who kept getting sprayed (on the theory that she's single and a nanny). And as we were heading in, she said, "Oh! And I need both of you at his apartment on Sunday to help with the move. It's mandatory."

Okay, so look, this is where I bristle. See, he's not moved here yet. He is still in Kansas and won't be moving back until three weeks from now. But in her desire to make it easy for him, she has taken it upon herself to go apartment hunting to find him the best apartment possible, while he sits on his butt in Kansas and can't even find time to fill out the applications. And now they have located a place in North Eldredge and she wants to have it fully cleaned and ready to move in for him when he arrives. 

"So I want you over there at two on Sunday to fix the window shades," she instructs us. "Both of you."

I don't know why, but this annoys me. Greg has always teased Corb because he says his life has been handed to him on a silver platter (keep in mind, Corb was living in his brother's unfinished cellar and paying $1,000 rent a month when I first met him). Meanwhile, Corb's mom continues to pay Greg's cell phone bill at the age of 44, even though she spent years telling me I was too lenient with Ashes and Theo.

And I get why she's doing it. Greg has always been her problem child, the one she worries most about. He ran away at the age of 12, moved in with her ex-husband after they divorced, struggled with alcohol and drug addictions, made poor choices in love. Ashes was my problem child for years (for much different reasons), so I totally understand. She was the one who sucked all the oxygen out of the room for the other kids, and yes, as a parent of a divorce situation, I felt a ton of guilt for it and wanted to over compensate.   

But why do I need to get sucked in on her guilt complex? This is what I am having trouble sorting through. Does this really need to become a family affair? The whole family pitching in to rescue Greg? She even has jobs picked out for him when he returns home. 44, man. 44. 

I don't know. My mom is awfully fond of saying she did her job raising us, and at 21, it was time for us to live our own lives, and time for them to focus on theirs. Which of course isn't entirely true--dad has always been there to help financially if needed. Not often, but he sure was helpful when Josie and I were separating. 

So yes, I remember that. It's not exactly the same, by a long run, but I am going to keep on reminding myself of that. Which is why, during habachi, I bit my tongue and carried on. Yes, of course, we will be there to help on Sunday. Happy to help.

Yes, we will help that prodigal son, and yes, I shall keep quiet. At least, to his mum. Corb, on the other hand? You bet he is going to keep hearing all about it. Non-stop. Like a stream of sake to the mouth at a hibachi joint. That's what couples do, after all. United in complaining about pain-in-the-ass family members.