Tails of a 17th Street Geisha

okay. Everyone’s life sucks. Rich or poor, white or black, people think their lives suck and they deal with it in different ways.  Some people’s problems are so trifling that we think they’re ridiculous (watch any reality tv show on MTV.) Most of the times, we never think about people who have SERIOUS problems, or problems worse than our own. We never think about what our lives would be like if we had to live in their shoes.

I just got into Texas. My sister picked me up at the airport and we went to the mall. The first thing we always do when we see each other (which is once a year at either x-mas or thanks-taking) is go shop at the big San Antonio mall and eat at the Cheesecake Factory. This time, we hung out,  I bought them great x-mas presents at build-a-bear and Wet Seal (for my teenie bopper niece), we ate, we had a great time…

Then I got to her house. I opened the door to her house and — I shit you not — it looked like a tornado blew right through it. There were clothes everywhere, food, crap, junk EVERYWHERE. I walked through her dining room and there wasn’t even room on the floor for me to put the DDR pad that I bought for her kids. All through her house there were clothes, food, cups, paper… CRAP. EVERYWHERE. It was the worst mess I’ve ever seen in my lifetime. Times ten.

Somehow, I never really think things are as bad as they are. I get over the initial shock and I think about solutions for making things better. I promised myself I would pull an all-nighter cleaning so that the girls could wake up to a clean house. I kept positive about it all. I didn’t think it was so terrible, until one of my nieces said that there were leeches floating in her toilet. My sister said their toilet was broken but I went to look at the toilet and there were tiny black worms, tons of them, floating and kicking around in a toilet with poop in it. IT GETS WORSE!!!

I start berating my sister about it and she looks all depressed an downtrodden. Her eldest starts at it as well, but this time says that she’s on the computer all the time and never spends any time cleaning. I try to get in the middle of them because they’re SCREAMING at each other fighting over who doesn’t clean and who does and why my sister is always on the computer. They fight for about an hour while I try to get another niece to shower, and get the other to take her psychiatric meds.

I try to get them to make up and they go to Walmart to get dog food to have some time alone to talk. They get back and I’m done cleaning one of my nieces room, when my sister comes into the room and tells me that her eldest has lice and that I shouldn’t clean her room. I’ve already hugged all three of them, let them lean on my shoulder, lay my head on the same car head rest as the one with lice, and so I’m sure I have it. I ask what lice looks like, for my niece to show me and she instead, parts my sister’s hair to show me a sea of white chunks that look like dandruff!!!!!!! My first thought is  FUUUUCK!!!!!!!!! Where am I going to sleep?

My sister has been clinically depressed for quite some time, she lives in a run down shit-hole, her middle child (of 3) is a troublesome child who had to be put in a mental-health hospital for at-risk troubled kids or something. Her youngest child is a sweet kid who has faded into the background of the drama from the two older ones. The eldest who fought about her mom not spending enough time cleaning  is going through a goth-punk-rock rebellion to get noticed and is also going through new teen angst and puberty.  My sister’s husband is in Iraq and she lives in a shithole of a city with a disease that no one understands and that makes her appear lazy when she really doesn’t have the strength of heart or lung capacity to do much of anything. On top of all of it, her kids have lice, her mom lives down the road and berates her for the way her home is kept (or not kept) and her mother-in-law chastises her for not being discipline on her kids. Oh yeah, and I reiterate–there are black worms living in one of her toilets. I forgot to mention her money problems, but I won’t go there.

In spite all of it, perhaps things can get better. Some of it can be rectified, not all maybe, but we can work through it. Her house is a reflection of her lack of care for life and herself, but something’s gotta give. I don’t know what to do about it. i don’t judge her but I feel helpless and don’t know how to get her to a place where she can want to live her life and be happy enough to want to change things for the better and care. Any ideas?

In the meantime, I’m going to go through her clothes and trash what they don’t wear. A house with fewer clutter is easier to clean and looks cleaner. Her kids can be crazy, but we’ll try to make her middle child take her ADHD (and other) psych medicine. We’ll call through her yellow pages (again) and try to find a plumber who will come to her house (they haven’t returned calls because they think her broken toilet is a small job and not a priority.) We’ll use the lice comb on her and her kids to get rid of it. We’ll go through TONS AND TONS of laundry so that the house is lice free. I’ll clean up her house, room by room and TRASH a ton of crap that she has.

Everyone has the right to complain every now and again, but being here in Texas gives me some serious perspective. Poor sister of mine. I love her so much and I really want her to be happy. What do I do?

This entry was posted on Sunday, November 20th, 2005 at 10:52 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.