Major Damage Control

And so the fight not to get thrown out of the house began Thursday night.

All day I couldn't help but think that my parents were conspiring to get me out.  After all these years, we have switched roles finally: I am now working day and night while they're at home chillin'.  Of course, when I was at home I wasn't thinking up ways to throw them out.

I was imagining them so much that it was affecting my work.  I had to do something, so after rolling some thoughts around in my head, I decided to try and pre-empt any anger they may have for me spending another night out "working" (I work till 9:30 but most of this week I came back at 1.  The one time I came home was Wednesday, and all hell broke loose) by calling My Father.  There were some things I wanted to talk to him about, such as the ink cartridge he wanted me to change was wrong and that I will be busy (legitimately busy) this weekend.  Although he yelled at me a lot, he seemed to be more willing to talk to me calmly than Mother.  I was right; he was fairly quiet and had an easygoing tone, and the only thing he said was he received a call for my eye appointment on Friday.

When I came home I was scared that I they would drop signs of their intention of throwing me out.  If My Father was still up and wanted to "talk," that would've been a bad thing.  If they laid brochures for apartments in the area, that would be worse.  And if the stuff that is in the bedroom of Grandmother before she was thrown out is out in the living room, well, that would be a really, really shitty sign.

But there was none of that.  The only thing I saw was the light coming from Mother's office.  Of, shit.  The only goddamn reason she would be at 1 in the morning is she is researching apartments for me to move into, like she said she would as she was yelling at me Wednesday.  I'm fucked.

I went around the top floor of the house to see what My Father fucked with while I was gone.  When I went to my new bedroom (which was Grandmother), Mother came up the lower stairs and reminded me of the eye appointment.  And that was it.

Still, I was paranoid.  What was she doing down there?  I bet she was looking at apartment-hunting websites.  I had to know, goddammit.  So after I took my shower and Mother was asleep, I went downstairs into her office and snooped on both of her laptops.  I brought down a 401(k) letter with me as cover; if she or My Father comes in, I can say that I was helping her with figuring out how to get her money out of her 401(k) after promising her I would weeks ago.  (And actually, that was something I promised I'd do and should have done sooner.  Once I got done I was going to tackle the problem.)  I also could say that I was going to help her find a way for her to watch movies on the flash drive my uncle (her brother) gave to her.  That was the thing I was helping her with Wednesday, minutes before she melted down on me.

She did come in, after I looked through the history of her big laptop but not her little one, dammit.  So I played along, telling her about the 401(k) and telling her I was taking another shot at the flash drive.  She told me that she asked friends to help her with the flash that day, and she now can watch her movies because she was told to download a different media player.  So QuickTime doesn't rule the universe.

Throughout all of this she wasn't mad at me.  In fact, she acted really nice to me, like she didn't yell at me Wednesday night after I complained about her adding a third slice of bread in the middle of a sandwich she made for me.  I don't like it, but that doesn't mean she should just go off like that.  Maybe she wasn't mad anymore because I basically begged for my goddamn life after she told me to leave.

And you know what?  Even though everything seemed OK after Thursday night, I'm still kind of scared that they're still planning on getting me out.  I have yet to look through her new, smaller laptop for her web history.