Housekeeping

Housekeeping is a real pain. Without anyone to tell us off we leave things strewn about everywhere. The front room is just frightful. I mean, it could be a lot worse, but it could also be considerably better.

I can't be sure, but it might help if we had more furniture. For example, I would really enjoy having a dresser to keep my clothes in. Most of my furniture is being stored in the shed in back of my parents' house and I haven't felt like going and getting it. I don't want to move large heavy objects around more than I have to and if I wind up living somewhere else in a month it will be nice to only have to move all my crap once. Also, Masami may want to come with me to oversee things and she is not currently on my parents' list of favorite people. Actually, my mother has taken to calling her Satan.

So my clothes are just in a collection of laundry baskets and cardboard boxes (some of the things that go in closets have been hung up) in our guest bedroom. And we've got a guest this week, so I've got to creep in without waking him if I want a pair of clean underpants in the morning. Actually, I moved the basket with my underpants in it upstairs this morning.

We've had a security system installed—a man came to the door and said they'd put it in for free if we allowed them to display a sign in our front yard advertising the system. Nobody ever put up the sign and I'm not sure that the thing is connected up properly, but we've got it. It's a lot of fun to play with. It should raise the value of the house a bit to have it. There are rumors that Masami's dad may buy a new range for the kitchen as a housewarming gift, which would really make the place much nicer.

My parents' think buying the house is the stupidest thing I've ever done in my life. My mother had allowed me to use one of her credit cards to pay off an old card of Masami's. This gave us a lower interest rate and made the situation more manageable. I paid on the balance on my mom's card online each month. Because my parents were so frightened that I would not have enough money to make the payments on this house, they thought I might be tempted to order a duplicate card through the website and use it to make the payments. I would not have done this, I'm fairly sure; however, to ensure that I did not, my mother changed the password to access the account, locking me out of the website. She then told me that I should make payments directly to her. This is probably all within her rights and not something I should complain (much) about, but the revised situation makes me extremely uncomfortable. It is never a good situation for family members or friends to be forced into the roles of debtor and creditor.

The car I drive is actually my mother's. I had the thought that she could sell it to pay the debt. As I see it, the car contains value which is used up as I drive it—in a few years it will be a worthless lump of metal and we'll have to pay someone to tow it away. If I'm allowed to use that value, why not redirect it toward paying off my debt? No one is having any of it, though. I nearly left the car with them anyway. I had serious misgivings about accepting the use of it when it was offered in February. The car is a solid manifestation of the lack of trust my parents have for me. I'm not trusted to make a credit card payment without running the bill up even higher. I'm not trusted to be able to get from place to place without their help. I'm not trusted to come back home to visit if I haven't got a bungee cord clipped to my belt, pulling me back to West Valley for Sunday dinners and endless critiques of my chosen life and family.

I know I'll feel a lot better if I can get out from under the weight of debt to my mother sooner rather than later. Masami is looking into taking the money out of the 401K she has from when she worked at ARUP. I feel a little weird about doing that, as my impression is that you're supposed to leave money in 401Ks, not take it out—at least, until you're old. Still, I suppose it's important to do what we have to do to at least get to being old and then figure things out from there. Just like always.