Rags to Riches

This morning, the first morning of my school-free summer, I woke up around 8am to the sound of a weed-whacker underneath my bedroom window, and immediately, memories of my childhood flooded my thoughts. My dad liked to get up on Saturday mornings, at some God awful hour, and either mow the lawn, weed-whack, or start his Harley Davidson motorcycle, over and over again. Pure torture, even as a child I needed my sleep. I love my dad dearly, but he does have these annoying tendencies, and the noise factor is one of them. He is so noisy!

So, I got out of bed about an hour later (I know, I shouldn't complain, it is a Tuesday and I didn't get out of bed until 9am!), and opened my porch door. The noise flooded my living room. I was actually on the phone with my dad, who was talking mostly to himself about the truck he was driving (he is in construction), and not really paying any attention to our conversation. Did I mention I am not a morning person, at all? So, after we got off the phone, and I slammed the porch door shut (as if the landscapers can hear that over the racket they are making), I sat down in front of Ellen and had my breakfast.

I am annoyed this morning for another, purely irrational, reason. My dad bought his rags-to-riches (thanks to him) wife a brand new Mustang. And now they are putting leather seats in it. It is not so much that I am jealous because I want a mustang, it is more that he is spending money on her, and I don't think she deserves it. When I met her, she was a single mom, working three or four jobs at a time, totally frugal, and thought my siblings and I were spoiled brats. Now, she sits on almost twelve acres, in a beautiful home, gets her nails done, just traded in her BMW to downgrade to the 2010 Mustang, and will be getting leather seats put in this week. In her former, poorer, life, she would rag on my siblings for receiving gifts from my father, but now it seems she has joined, what she coined, the "I-Wanna" tribe. Meanwhile, I am not comfortable reminding my father that three years ago, when I went back to college, he promised to help me financially any way he could. Um, $25,000 in student loans later and God knows how much I have spent on books and supplies, and how much I have sacrificed to get my education, he has yet to contribute one penny. He would say that he has done so much for me in my past life, which he had, but helllllllllllllllllllllo, I was a child, you were to provide for me.

Don't get me wrong, I need to reiterate that I love him and truly appreciate all that he has done. This is simply a response to him buying his wife a car that she doesn't deserve. However, she will pay for this, as he will end up bitching and complaining before she knows it, talking about how much money he spent and all that. She just hasn't learned what my sister and I have: Don't ask for anything. Don't agree to take a gift. It (he) will haunt you the first time you mess up for it. The materialistic items are not worth the emotional burden that always lies just under the hood of that new, shiney car.

In a way, I hope she never learns. I told him today I would reveal my feelings about the whole situation with her and their marriage when he is too old to remember what I have said.