Maybe you should remind your Dad about the dogs?
I could try, but I’m not optimistic that he’d care. I could offer to stay behind so I’m with them though, which might go down a bit better than just “I don’ wanna go!”
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If you do decide to go, and you can manage it, I’d suggest eating a light meal or a snack before you go. That way, if you can’t eat what’s there you won’t be ravenous. I do this all the time when I don’t know what the food situation will be. (Or when I do know I won’t be able to eat much.)
I don’t think you’d be unreasonable for not going if there’s no reasonable alternate way home, either. Even for places where I know I’ll be happy for hours, I still need to know alternate ways home just in case.
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I have been trying to spend SO MUCH time with my sister because I know that she’s lonely and wants to talk to someone. We spent practically all day together on Wednesday and the majority of the afternoon on Friday, not to mention the daily talking when she wakes up or cooking at around the same time or I’m checking in on her before or after work or we’re going to bed all the other days.
My social battery is at its limit.
Tonight I’m trying to go to bed early enough to get up early tomorrow (technically today now, whoops) so I tell her I’m going to bed and ask if she wants me to lock up or if she’ll do it herself. She responds that she’ll go to bed too. So we go downstairs together, talking as I wait for the dogs to come back inside and my sister to have a drink so I can turn off the downstairs lights, and I wait in my room for her to use the bathroom first so she doesn’t sulk about me wanting to turn off the corridor light before she’s in bed, and then she comes for goodnight cuddles and is saying more things to me and I just wanna go to bed so I’m not all that interested in what she’s saying.
And then she sulks that I “never talk” to her! Excuse me missy we have talked so much, and she’s choosing midnight when I already said I wanted to go to bed early much earlier and then sulking that I don’t want to spend the next half hour talking about my dad and his girlfriend fiancee. I wanna sleep and now I’m too annoyed to over this stupidity. Ugh.
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WiFi went down. Had a bit of a panic attempting to troubleshoot (resetting modem, turning off and on again), then tried phoning my dad and his girlfriend but neither answered. Readied myself to make The Phone Call and googled the WiFi people’s website to find their number. Found a bit on their website where you type in your postcode and last name to check if there’s an outage in your area, which sounds much better than talking to a person so I do that.
“Looks like your service has been disconnected. This could be because you’ve cancelled all or some of your services. Not cancelled, of need more help?” Button for online chat, button for calling.
Cue panic. Because this message clearly says that we don’t get WiFi anymore. I have no clue if my dad’s forgot to pay his bills (unlikely) or if he’s become vindictive and just cancelled it on us with no warning (less likely) or what, but my brain is running through several bad scenarios.
I try to phone, but can’t get past the automated system because I have neither a house phone nor the account number. I try the chatbot, which leads to:
Chatbot: Alright It’s not my account it’s my dad’s, thank you for providing the following information
Email - please get me a person
Date bills are taken from card - I have no clue
Amount of last bill - who knows?
An agent will be with you shortly to help with
Experiencing issues
And I’m just sat there thinking none of those are the right answers. (I do not like chatbots). I answer the actual person’s questions as best I can with the limited information I have, and get told that since it’s a business* account I have to phone this other number instead.
I’m expecting this to go as brilliantly as the other customer service line, but I get through to a person really quickly, confirm some stuff, and then faff around trying to look at the back of the modem for probably ten minutes trying to blindly use my phone to take a photo of the right sticker since all the wires are too taunt for me to turn it around.
Finally get the number the guy wanted, and find out that it is an outage in my area after all. They’re working on it already and it should be fixed by 22:50.
Hooray! “Crisis” averted! No one disconnected the WiFi. Not sure what to do with myself in the eight hours until then (I’m far too addicted to the internet, turns out) I decide to take a nap.
(Dad’s girlfriend phoned back while I was on the phone and left a voicemail saying I could phone if I still needed to and I’ve just realised I should have texted to say I sorted it so I’ll do that now.)
Anyway, that was a lot of background to why my dad phones some time later. I briefly explain that the WiFi went down but I managed to phone and it’ll be fixed by 22:50. And he starts going on about how he hopes I didn’t screw anything up by phoning them since it’s a business account. I try to explain that it was fine, but he’s all “I’m really worried that you’ve screwed it up by getting help through the customer service number when it’s a business account.” And I told him that I did phone them first but they gave me the right number. There was a bit more back and forth on that and how crackly the signal was, until he told me “maybe you should take a nap until it’s on again” “that’s what I was doing”
I was not impressed by the interrogation. That he just assumed I was going to fuck it up because I’m too stupid and am going to make the phone people suspicious.
Business account* Some years ago (well before covid), my dad figured out business WiFi is cheaper and faster than personal WiFi. So he phoned them up, pretended he ran a tech business on his computer at home, and got us better WiFi. At the time, he technically did have employees and paid them via his computer, but now he doesn’t so it’s probably kinda fraud.
But I like having good WiFi so I’m not going to turn around to the helping person and be all “well technically it’s a business account but that’s my dad lying because he doesn’t own a business anymore, and the one he used to run was completely different from what he said he was doing.”
It’s annoyed me that I managed to do the scary thing and make the phone call but he’d rather question all the ways I might have done it wrong.
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I used to have pretty bad phone anxiety, so let me just give you an Attagirl! for making the scary phone call. Try to remember how well the actual phone call went, versus what you were afraid of; don’t let your dad’s negativism cloud this positive experience 
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Speaking of scary phone calls, I had to phone work three times today.
First to tell them that I’m ill, and told they think the protocol is five days but I deiinitely don’t have to work today and they’ll get a manager t i phone me back and let me know protocol.
Secpmd was technically a manager phoning me not me phoning tem. To tell me that I don’t have to isolate and can come in if I feel well enough to work. And so I should phone in the morning to let them know if I’ll be going in or not and I said I’ll see how I feel in the morning.
But then I was thinking that even if I feel okay that doesn;t mean that I am okay and I still have covid and I’d infect all of my coworkers and every customer’s food I touch which infects them too but since I almost certainly got it from work anyway probably everyone is already infected so whether I’m there or not somebody else is going to be spreading covid to each other and the customers but then I decided that even if that is happening I can’t contribute to that. I can’t go in and makes things worse.
So Third I just explained to one of my manager’s that even if I don’t “have to” isloate, I won’t be coming in until I test negative. Went surprisingly well. I’ve just got to remember to phone them back every day and let them know what that days test result is.
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Stupid arguments over the stupid shopping.
My dad won’t drive to the shop because his car isn’t safe (the front window is foggy and won’t clear or something), despite the fact that he drives to work and/or to his girlfriend’s house near enough every day. He hasn’t drove to the bleeding shop since before christmas, so I’ve been going to one on my way home from work and using my own money.
So a few days ago I suggest to him that if he won’t drive then we can get the shopping delivered from online, and his immediate response was “well why can’t [sister] walk? Talk to me about this later I’m going to work.” To be fair I thought of the suggestion rather close to when he would have to leave for work.
I came home on Saturday with a few things I’d grabbed on my way from work to find my dad had done a little bit of shopping the same day, but he’d already left so I couldn’t talk to him then.
Today, I tried to approach the topic and he starts off by telling me about how he didn’t have a car when he was my age and lived in germany and he lived on this hill so he had to walk up and down the hill whenever he left his house. I try to point out to him that just because he had to do something when he was younger that I don’t have to do it now, but he interupts before I can finish the sentence with “Well what if I just up and died? How would you do shopping then?” And I responded that “I’d kind of have to get it myself, yeah.”
He says that if I walk to the shop with my sister then she can pay using his card, and then proceeds to tell me how to carry shopping as if I don’t know after the years I had to walk to the shop with my middle sister before either of us were 18. And we can’t carry as much as he can with a car or the delivery truck can with a delivery.
He tells me about how his car isn’t safe again and tells me for the first time that the car has had this issue since may. I suggest online shopping again and he tells me he doesn’t want to put his card on the account. I point out that part of my rent agreement with him includes food, he tells me that all of the bills have gone up so now it doesn’t. I ask why he doesn’t want his card online and he tells me that he wants to be able to keep track of what it’s being used for. He asks when I’d even get it delivered for anyway, and I tell him two of the days he normally isn’t here (Wednesdays and Fridays). He responds that he’s actually going to be sleeping here for the next few Wednesdays, and this one specific shop he wants us to go to is cheaper than online anyway.
He asks me why I don’t want to walk, and I tell him that’s its because I don’t want make a needless trip that is a half hour walk each way. He asks why I expect him to make the trip and I point out that he has a bleeping car. And then he starts bugging me about how I don’t drive, and I try to point out that I can’t drive because I’d crash the bleeping thing. He complains that I’m expecting him to make the trip when he can’t and we’ve circled back around to me telling him that if he can’t drive then that’s why I suggested delivery!
The conversation ended with him basically saying I’m just going to have to put up with it for the next few weeks until it gets warm enough that he can take his car. Considering it usually gets cold enough to snow in February, that’s going to be another month or two.
I get that he’s making some fair points in there, but he’s adamant in refusing to pay for shopping unless my sister walks there to physically use his damned card. Maybe it’s lazy of me, but I do not have to walk thirty minutes to get to the shop he wants the shopping to come from, spend an hour or so walking around trying not to walk into any of the other people, both me and my sister with a basket because with a trolley we might accidentally overload ourselves, and then make the return trip which is another thiry minutes with heavy bags.
Which means I either continue carrying what I can on my way home from work with my own money, or I order online again with my own money but run the risk that he’s sleeping here on a day I wasn’t expected and is mad at me for waking him up.
And then I thought the conversation was over, but no. He wants to complain that my mug was too far to the right of where the dirty dishes are supposed to be, and the jar of oil(? that I had left to cool down after cleaning the grill yesterday) was in his way and I needed to throw it directly into the outside bin, and that the floor towel was too wet after I had my shower.
We spent a stupid amount of time arguing about that last one, because I’m not showering any different that I have for the past however many years and all of a sudden I’m drying myself wrong and it’s getting the floor towel too wet and I understand neither how I’m doing this wrong nor why he cares when he’s only going to stand on it when his own wet feet get out of the shower and he makes it wet himself.
I’d been having a good day before this and now I’m just annoyed because of stupid arguments.
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Can’t deal with how nitpicky my sister is.
She complains at me that she wasn’t able to eat breakfast this morning because she overslept and had wanted to eat breakfast when she got back. Fair enough.
She then complains at me that she wasn’t able to because “none of the bowls are clean.” Excuse me? I washed three of them last fricking night. So I tell her that as far as I’m concerned the bowls are clean and she’ll have to show me what’s wrong with them.
I get home. Bowl 1 admittedly had a faint smudge of sauce, but I wipe it away easily with my thumb. Bowl 2 had three pinpricks (I’m not being figurative, I could dot my pen on a piece of paper and it would be a similar size) of dirt on the inside, and I had to closely examine the bowl directly under the light to see two of them. Bowl 3 also had a faint smudge, but on the outside of the bowl.
As far as I’m concerned, these bowls are clean. But she’s been yelling at me about how dirty the bowls are and crying that she’s going to have to clean them herself because I never do things properly and I’m too blind to see how dirty they are and I’m just done. I’m not spending twice as long doing the bleeping dishes to try to get the <1% bit of dirt I’ll miss.
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I’m late to this but can I make a not-so-easy but potentially beneficial suggestion?
At this point your dad is being consistently unhelpful to your detriment. You can’t afford to move out. So I would actually just business-boundary the whole thing.
That is: you pay rent, act like a tenant. Buy groceries for yourself and your sister. Dad can do his own thing. If he complains, point to the rental agreement (update it if necessary so you are responsible for your own things). Utilities will still have to be paid by him, but set aside some time to make plans for when things go wrong: ok you can’t access accounts to sort problems. So can you buy data on your phone as a backup? Keep torches for if the power goes out, etc. If dad is the account holder then let him take responsibility. Boundary not just your own things (ie food or clothes), but the things he’s supposed to do. Power outage? Let him deal with it. He’s too lazy? Not your pronlem, you’ve got your own backup plan so neither you or your sister have to deal with it.
The more boundaries you put in, the more responsibility you take for your own stuff, the more independence you will get. It isn’t easy as I said, but if you enforce those boundaries eventually your dad will realise that you’re going to be doing things your own way without his help.
That “my house, my rules” thing can be taken to ridiculous extremes. It may feel like he can tell you how and when to buy groceries: he can’t.
In a rental, a landlord can only require you to do certain things. Maybe you could look up your tenant’s rights in your state and point to those. “If you’re my landlord, you don’t get to tell me how to use the towels, only that I keep the place clean and tidy”… etc.
I have no doubt that will temporarily cause some ruffles, because he’s not your landlord but your dad… then you can turn around and say “so act like a dad and organise groceries so your daughters can eat”. The more you organise your own stuff though, the less he can tell you what to do with it.
(I normally hate ‘tough love’ bs, but honestly, you’re the kid. He should stop pestering you to act the way he wants you to act, and actually … look after you regardless)
Also… I recommend having an account on a real estate website and looking for share houses (one bed, common bath/kitchen) or moving in with house mates asap. It will always feel like the urgent crowds out the important. PLEASE do yourself a favour and set aside some time to look into moving out. I guarantee it will relieve a lot of stress to get some distance. I know you are worried about your sister but frankly at this point, getting yourself out first and then worrying about her might save you from a meltdown.
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My biggest concern with moving out is Betty. Trying to find anywhere that accepts greyhounds is a nightmare, though maybe I’m not looking in the right places.
The good news is my dad is going to the shop again as of last week. I should probably still just buy my own stuff since he sulks if I ask for “too much.”
Don’t actually have the rental agreement in writing. Should probably fix that. I can look up actual ones then present it to him as if I’m preparing for when I have an actual rental agreement, which isn’t technically a lie.
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Is everything going all right? Haven’t seen you in a while.
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I’m okay. I just needed a break from being on here for a bit.
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