The kids were picked up from school, and I awaited them at home with excitement, an excellent idea, and a well-worked-out master plan. Since Wednesday is the only day of the week when nobody has any commitments after work or school, it would be a fantastic idea to do something together as a family! Of course, individually, we do many things with the kids. Still, as a family, I struggled to remember when we sat down and played a game where everybody was happy and involved.
On any day of the week for the past two months, piano playing has been scheduled after school. So, the kids know they must play the piano for at least an hour when they arrive home. They stuck to it, respected the rules, and worked very hard, so I surprised them after they stepped into the house with the announcement that there would be no piano playing today because we would be having a family day.
My enthusiastic approach got crushed, and the important message got lost in translation because somebody decided to search for some suitcase wheels in the filthy car after the kids were dropped off in the dirt, overcrowded with stuff like “macro hall.” Nevertheless, I delivered the message through my usual showmanship approach and broke the news to the children. Naturally, I felt wholly disrespected and ignored by someone who should have been there with us, enjoying the conversation. But, in any situation, the show must and will go on. I delivered the exciting news well because the kids jumped around like playful chimpanzees, shouting, celebrating, and happily looking forward to the family afternoon.
Eventually, the main door popped open, and I saw through the crack that the car boot had been emptied onto the paved parking space in front of the house. I repeated what I had told the kids before, but their reaction was, “I will go now to vacuum the car.”
The shocking part is that a day ago, we discussed that I would get a helping hand from my mother’s partner. We would use that same car to take away a lot of recycling, clean out the garage, and eliminate unwanted things from the garden.
I have an extraordinarily high level of common sense and am utterly aware that common sense is not common to everybody, certainly not to the person I am sharing my life with. However, suppose someone has an IQ of just about room temperature. In that case, they surely should have realized that cleaning a car before taking rubbish to the skip yard is the same as taking a refreshing long shower minutes before starting a 12-hour shift in a coal mine as a drill operator.
Of course, I don’t value people doing counterproductive and brainless things. Still, I have always succeeded with everybody who wanted to work. You can take a goat down to the river, but you can’t make it drink the fresh, crystal-clear water. So instead, it consumes water from a ditch or gutter where it was raised.
I gave up on this relationship a long time ago because it’s challenging for me to be with someone unwilling to learn, thrive, or make changes in their monotonous life routine. In addition, an individual who makes the same mistake repeatedly, even when told the same thing multiple times, is not someone I respect or can look up to.
But of course, I am entirely aware of both parents’ importance for the children’s upbringing. I am in a comfortable place because I have three incredibly respectful, beautiful, sharp, and witty children. The kids are more than OK, which makes me happy and helps me tick.
During the hoovering session, I lost my motivation to do anything with the children because I planned it as a family day. So, I warmed up a leftover lamb shank cooked two days ago that had been left dumped on the hob in the kitchen and started eating.
We do have a fridge, and it should not generally take the brain of a rocket scientist to figure out that food in a kitchen environment goes off five times quicker than in the fridge. Still, I understand moving the cooked food from the hob into the refrigerator must be a drag. They are a meter apart from each other.
Wondrous wanderings and utter surprises are also happening because the unwanted visitors we’ve been having for a couple of months are unwilling to eat the poison or walk into the set traps. The mice have an overload and a variety of foods spreading equally on the hob and kitchen worktops, including the lounge table. Whatever doesn’t fit on those surfaces will end up on the floors. Common sense tells me that there’s no need for the vermin to eat boring bits of dried-out cheddar positioned on a low-quality wooden trap purchased in 2007 somewhere in the back streets of Hale, a quick reminder for Adel, and has the blood stains, DNA, and the pulled-out guts and chopped-off bits of their ancestor’s body parts on it or low-quality poison from the shop.
I have told this person at least 100 times in the past 12 years, but the information fell on deaf ears. It went through the left, penetrated empty space, and exited unprocessed through the right. So I assume that if I could shout into that head, my voice would echo like the impulsive, high-pitched cry of a black-and-white colobus, which delivered three infants but only had two nipples at the foot of Kilimanjaro.
The kids went on the tablet and mobile phone, which is generally prohibited. They’re not allowed to use those gadgets except for studying. Still, as they stepped into the property, I had already promised that today would be different, so I let them use the tablet. Naturally, I kept an eye on them. The oldest watched football tricks, and the middle one checked football-related websites on a six-year-old smartphone. Meanwhile, the little one poked her hand through the letterbox, watching while shouting, “Mummy.”
I hoped the hoovering would stop soon, and we would start playing board games or having fun as a family. After I had finished my food, which had an aftertaste and had dwelt in the warm kitchen for a couple of days, I sat down and started playing some chess on my phone. The hoovering was still going on heavily outside. Well, I appreciate that the car was filthy because it hadn’t been cleaned in ages, but why did it need to be cleaned today? Only God knows, and I’m not going to ask them.
The middle one got bored of the football and went up and started playing the piano without being asked to do so. However, the sound of the cheap Casio encouraged the older one, who also went to his instrument and started playing and working on some original material we wrote together.
I went upstairs and checked on them, and we had some fun on the piano. By the time I came downstairs, there was some activity in the kitchen, including loud talk and laughter. I asked, “What is going on?” She was doing something in the kitchen and showed me her mobile over her shoulder, which displayed the name of a Polish woman. They used to be colleagues a while back. I appreciate that they stayed in touch, but not on a day like today, and not when the hoovering was more important than feeding the kids and getting on with the family day.
The conversation went on and on and on. Finally, as I entered the kitchen a while later, I was told, “This conversation for me is like when you talk to your mom!” Completely unimportant, but I still talk to her.
I do not care about anyone’s opinion of my mom. My mom is my mom, and we do not have a great relationship. We never had, and we never will. However, if a brainless, useless, OCD woman is compared with my mom and put on the same level and category, this is the right time for me to draw the line. My mom just offered us 70,000 euros to help us buy a house to move out of the shithole where we are. She didn’t do it for me. She knows my financial situation. She didn’t do it for her because they could never talk to each other because of the language barrier. She did it for the children! The Polish woman had baked a cake or two for them in the past. I struggle to compare it with the 70K financial boost. Still, of course, I have to understand that a couple of cakes close to Karura Forest are much more valuable than 70K. The cakes you can eat. Money is just dirty paper.
I lost interest in everything, started cracking open the beer cans like there was no tomorrow, had whiskey chasers, and played chess. The children approached me half-hourly and asked when the family game was starting. Still, the Polish lady on the phone was much more important and entertaining than an evening with the family.
Let’s also bear in mind that she will leave us in a few days (I am not referring to the Polish woman) for three weeks, so she won’t have any opportunities left for family play with the children. So today is, of course, the only day we could have done something together. All other days will be busy after work and school, so this ship has sailed.
Of course, this is the story as I see it, and I will send this to her and ask her to respond in writing. I want my children to see and read these stories when they are older and realize what I have sacrificed for them. I am furious, frustrated, and utterly disappointed in spending my life with this kind of individual.
After several cans of beer and whiskey shots, I went to bed alone. I was pretty drunk and didn’t even say goodnight to the children. All I remember is that at some point in the night, a bottle of diluted peach juice was put next to my bed, which was a nice touch. But I am struggling to entertain the thought that this was enough for me as a man for a day.
Let’s wait and see what BS will be thrown at me tomorrow!