More HIjinks With Grandmother

So she wakes me up late last night because she wants to talk to her son. (She's not really my Grandmother, she was just around to raise me and my brother and sister as my parents were off to run the store, which is now closing, if you haven't kept up.) He sent her some money, but wanted to make sure it was going to the right place.

Right place? Grandmother said he sent it to her bank, and she wants to make sure he has the correct address for the bank. And that's where the hijinks, which wasted 45 minutes of my late night, began:

• Do you have the check? Yes, I do. Well, the address is on there.
• Does your son have the address? I don't know. We'll call him. Oh shit, I say to myself, we have to go through all the international calling bullshit again.
• OK, what's his number? I don't know.
• She shuffles through the pages of this manila envelope of ... papers that has all the phone numbers and addresses (theoretically) of the people she knows overseas. She has this very small notepad, and she does that thing where she rifles through the pages by putting her finger on her tongue first. That's very fucking unsanitary, and I hate it even more when the person doing it doesn't know where to find what she's looking for. Grandmother really didn't know what she was looking for, for that matter.
• Wait a second ... do you have his address? No. WHY THE FUCK NOT? HE'S YOUR SON!!!
• Wait another second ... why is he sending money to your bank? I don't think you can do that in America. Why doesn't he just send the money to you, here? I don't think he has this address. WHY THE FUCK NOT? HE'S YOUR SON!!! (This family doesn't care about each other, truly.)
• Ah, here's the number. But it doesn't have the international code. I'll just take a guess off the top of my head ... no, that's not it. Wait here, Grandmother, I need to go to my bedroom and look at my day planner.
• Yeah-yeah-yeah, hold on. Wait, I give the phone to you and you give it back to me? Does he even speak English?
• Alright, can you read me back the address? OK, you have the bank address, now tell me this address, your mom's home address, this address. Yes ... no-no-no ... now, don't hang up on me! Wait, you forgot the Northeast, but besides that, you got everything right.
• Shut up, Grandmother! (I got to the point where I started hitting her in the shoulder to make her stop talking while I was on the phone. She does that all the time, and I hate that.)
• So the money's coming in Friday? I don't know -- I've never heard of doing such a thing as sending money to a bank ever in my life. So we have to call my son again to check? Fuck that, I'm not doing that!!!

So the bottom line is, despite all her stray papers and having no clue where things are, she does have her son's phone. And even though I feared the worst, the son does have both the home and her bank's addresses. Unfortunately, for some goddamn reason he sent money to the bank (without an account number ... shit, that's why he needed, isn't it?), so on Friday I have to call the bank and ask, "Hey, did you guys just so happen to receive some money from some guy in Hong Kong?" That'll be a treat to sort through, especially if there's no money.

What happened after that really pissed me off. Grandmother's old age/absentmindedness already pushed my buttons at this point, but what came next sent me over the edge.

I thought I was done, so I went back into my bedroom. Some time later I hear a commotion outside so I came out of my bedroom. Grandmother hadn't taken her insulin shot yet, so if it was her finding something to eat, I was going to make sure she shot up first.

She was not in the kitchen, so I check to see if she snuck something into her bedroom. I go in. She has no food. But instead the bitch ambushes me: "I wanted to say something to my son but you hung up before I had the chance!" And that fucking pissed me off. "I gave you the phone, but you hung up! You had your fucking chance but you said goodbye, not me!! You know what? If you want to fucking talk to your son, you do it your goddamn self!!!" For all the shit I helped her through that evening and she shows her gratitude by accusing me of something I didn't do?

It didn't register with her. First of all, I was screaming at her in English. I wanted to make sure I articulated my anger towards her, and I can't do that speaking in Chinese. But I knew that she was probably oblivious to my outburst towards her when, later, she ambled down to my bedroom and asked me to add the international and country codes to her son's number. I take the pad and pen out of her hands and write it down, standing in the hallway. I don't know why she needs it. Does she really think she can call her son by herself? Good luck. She said she'll call to check up with her son tomorrow.

But then, not ten goddamn motherfucking minutes later, she comes back to me and tells me, "You call my son now." JESUS FUCKING CHRIST, YOU SAID YOU WERE GOING TO FUCKING CALL HIM TOMORROW!!! Well, I knew she wouldn't and couldn't do that, so I just fucking stomped my way into her bedroom and used the calling card to call her again. And I put the phone down as soon as I punched in the number.

I'm always ashamed when My Father yells at Grandmother. Last night was one of those nights where, sadly, I can see where he's coming from.