oh come on, we all knew it was coming.
You know how I've been missing the bus, and no one can take me to school?
Last night I set my clock to ring at 5:15 in the morning. And I read for a while and then I went to sleep.
I was awakened this morning by my mother. I can't even recall what she said right now. Something about I'd better hurry up or I'd miss the bus (snarling).
I dashed up to discover it was nearly 6:40. About three things went through my head:
"Shit."
"Does she seriously not know my bus comes at 6:40 or is she just being awful?" [she'd just snapped at me again that I'd better be out there before the bus passed.]
"Why didn't my clock ring this time?!"
So I ran around, dressed and went to check my clock, see if maybe I set the alarm to 17:15 instead. Nope. 5:15, correctly set, and the little light that indicates that the alarm's been set was on.
So. Clearly you'd think I could show my mother this and she'd be annoyed, but agree that I can't really control if my clock doesn't ring in the mornings and take me to school, the end.
Right?
Wrong.
Take a picture: one very annoyed/scared kid (mom is angry, this is a scary thing if you live with her, and anyway if this person misses school his algebra teacher will never have faith in him again and he really does not want that because his algebra teacher is a nice algebra teacher who helped him a lot), running around out of breath because he's genuinely frightened. One mother in the bathroom yelling. Who knows where the fiance in the picture is.
Kid is running around muttering confusedly to himself, wondering if his mother has realized that by waking up at the time he did he's automaticallly missed the bus, so why is she even bothering?
Still, he dresses, grabs his things- where the hell is that notebook?- and rushes out into the wet morning.
Under better circumstances this would be a good morning because it's gray and cold and wet and he likes those kinds of mornings. They make him write poetry.
Today though, he's just cold and upset.
So he rushes down the street, debating: If he goes all the way to the bus stop and stands there until his mom passes in her car, will she stop and pick him up and be angry that he went to the stop when he knew his bus wouldn't come, and say he's a liar and ground him?
Or should he just go back home now and let her yell at him?
Or should he go to the bus stop, then turn around and go back home and let her yell at him?
Now he's truly frightened; what the hell does he do now?
In the end he goes to the bus stop; he'd rather she yell at him on the way to school than at the house, he wouldn't get a reprieve that way.
About ten minutes or so pass as he stands staring at cars, wondering, and thoughts run through his head about how long he should stand there; how if his mother doesn't take him to school he'll miss and Coach Machen will yell at him tomorrow- or worse, won't say anything at all; how if he does go to school he'll be late and that will be his fourth time, or was it fifth, which means he'll be suspended, which means his mother will go apeshit (as if she didn't already), and he'll be grounded into the next century....
His mother passes. She rolls down the window.
"It's seven o'clock," she yells. "You can go home now!" in the sort of tone that suggests that she knew he knew he wouldn't catch the bus; "you can stop pretending now, I'm not stupid' splashes all over her face.
He walks home ashamed and upset and for some reason close to tears (why is he such a baby that every time she yells at him he wants to cry?), but a little...excited. And very sleepy.
When he gets home, though, he brushes his teeth (he didn't have time to before) and as he stares into the mirror he starts to realize it's not over yet. She'll call, he knows it. She'll call, and she'll tell him he can't get on the computer, and he realizes with a slight pause in the motion of moving the toothbrush that there's a very good chance he's grounded now.
Sure enough, as if she's read his mind, the phone rings.
"Hello?"
"Hey."
"Why didn't you set your clock?"
"Mom, I did set my clock, I even checked to see if I set it wrong but I didn't, it says 5:15 in the morning."
"Did it go off?"
"No."
His mother is seething. "I'm getting tired of this shit, Epiphani, and if you fail because you keep missing school who do you think is going to be repeating the twelfth grade?"
He sighs. Why do parents ask questions like these?
"Me," he says slowly. (never mind that he hasn't actually missed enough days to fail yet....)
"Exactly. Because I ain't paying for no damned summer school just because you can't get yourself up in the morning. You're too old for this shit."
Silence. He's waiting for it now.
"Don't get on that computer today. Don't even go in my room. And don't get on the phone unless I call. If you can't go to school, then you can't do anything else." She pauses. "In fact, I want you to wash every single bit of clothing today. I better not come home and see even one thing that needs to be washed, do you hear me? I don't know what kind of shit you're trying to pull..."
He stops hearing her then. You don't know what kind of shit i'm trying to pull????
Slow breathing; he's not sure whether he's angry or breathless. "Yes ma'am."
"Bye."
They hang up; he sprints to his room. As he undresses the anger starts to spill over and suddenly he's crying, screaming at his mother.
"Why do you have to be so fucking irrational?" he shouts. "I set the fucking clock, it's not my fault if it didn't ring!" He struggles with his clothes and flings them off onto the bed, then starts to calm down. He sinks onto his bed.
He's still angry; she could have just yelled at him. She could have just grounded him for the day- one day missed, one day of prohibition, it makes sense, doesn't it? Why is it that she never administers punishments that fit his crimes? And what crime has he committed? For God's sakes, does she want to set his clock herself, so she can see that it wasn't his fault? He screams this thought, and then adds "because you're more than fucking welcome to."
His mother's words come back to him. "I don't know what kind of shit you're trying to pull..." He grows irate suddenly, and cries out again. "What do you mean what kind of shit I'm trying to pull? Does she think I do this shit to miss school on purpose?!"
A thought occurs.
"Does everybody think I'm some kind of fucking juvenile delinquent?" (his mother's sister calls him a dropout sometimes, and the other says a lot of things he doesn't bother to think of.)
God.
Now I suppose someone reading this is thinking he's overreacting; she said "today", right, so that means he's not grounded. Right?
If it were a more rational person, my dear, you'd be right.
But it's his mother.
When she says that, that means this: if he is on the computer tomorrow, when she comes home- assuming she doesn't lock the computer today when she comes home, or take away his key to her room, or both- she'll say "I didn't tell you that you could get on the computer."
And it will happen again and again throughout the week, for several weeks.
He knows because this is always how it goes with her. She never fits the amount of time he's punished for to the magnitude of whatever crime she feels he's committed. Even when he has admittedly done wrong she'll punish him for months sometimes.
It wouldn't be quite as devastating if it weren't for the facts that:
A) he's only just gotten several broken communication lines with other people fixed.
B) he can't talk to his friends who need someone to be there for them. And this kills him more than anything else, because he feels like it makes him a really shitty friend and even if it doesn't, how can he comfort anyone if he's not allowed to see them? They might understand, but when it's over the fact will still stand that when they needed him during the punishment terms, he wasn't there. Regardless of why.
C) Being grounded means he'll have to endure his mother and her fiance 24/7, with no reprieve. At all. That means his temper will shorten; that means he'll do or say something eventually and his mother will get mad and ground him for longer. Which in turn means he'll get even angrier, and so it goes.
(switching out of third person)
So the message here is: I may be grounded. And if I am I don't know how long it will be for. I'd apologize but there's no point and there's no excuse.
I don't know if I'm grounded because my mother changes her mind faster and more often than people change the channel. For all I know she's completely steamed off now and she'll come home perfectly amiable.
However that doesn't necessarily mean I'd be off. She could be amiable and then I'd get on the computer tomorrow and she'd say "I didn't say you could get on."
And then she could also come home today and put a password on the computer, and/or take away my key to her room and leave the door locked when she leaves for work so that I'm locked out of her room all day.
With my mom you never know until it happens. There's no prevention and no preparation.
So if I'm not online after 14h56 (that's two in the afternoon if you're sleepy) from Tuesday afternoon to Thursday afternoon (if it lasts more than three days it's probably definite) then that means yep. I'm grounded.
It might not, though; it might just mean I couldn't get on.
I hate these uncertainties. Do you see now, people that i talk to often, why I say that I HATE not knowing things? Look what it does to you.
Anyway.
If I'm grounded, you can hit me up on DeviantART.
or if you want to be sneaky and you have Gmail, use Google Documents. I can't check my email at school, but if you type a message in Documents and click to share it with me (toolestmeineretter@gmail.com) then I can open it in Documents at school unless they've gone and blocked that too.
Caleb, I already know I can get to you on DA; Lyle, you can use the Documents trick if you don't want to go back on there. I'll let you know if it works (i'll send you a document either saying "If you sent something it didn't work" or I'll reply to what you sent.)
....sigh. I just realized something. If I'm grounded there's no way to vent in my journal.
Shit.
Oh...and Kayla? If you read this: If you still want to go to the movies, I got the okay yesterday, so if I'm not allowed on the computer within the week you can just call me. (357-7119.)
ergh ergh ergh, the absolute FURY of my mother.
To think we were getting along for the last ten minutes of last night.
and again i have to ask if this was my fault.....
to anyone and everyone: i love you
I love you little brother, I love you mouse, I love you all of my friends.