Imma Be

You've probably figured it out by now but I'm the straight-laced sibling. The one who didn't see the point of drinking underage, who was never even offered drugs, and who into her twenties would not even say the word swear and considered hell and damn to her saltiest language. Times have clearly changed at least as it concerns the use of expletives (fuck, yea!) but at my core, I'm not really a rule breaker and I value people's trust.

As best I can describe someone I'm not, my brother and sister have never been that person. They are great at being likable and to some extent good at deception. They are not as good at hiding 'stuff' but they are good at hiding who they are. They like to plant; make what appear to be spontaneous statements to both gauge your reaction and throw you off the trail. When my sister started smoking (cigarettes) before we found out, she told me this long elaborate story that involved her best friend who had started smoking with my sister cast as the counselor urging her not to and outlining for me all the reasons she would never smoke. She was already smoking. That to me was evil. To go out of your way to deceive. We weren't even talking about smoking. We weren't talking about anything, just on our way back from the store on a random Sunday morning.

When she visited last year Thanksgiving, her clothes and bags reeked of marijuana and when she moved in with her still reeking bags, she tried to tell me, a person who spent my first few years out of college running drug cases, that I didn't know what I was talking about. She may be 23 but she wasn't living like an adult so I started tossing her room. I found what I hoped I wouldn't, including pictures of her in her cell phone actually smoking a blunt. Fucking idiot. I don't know where you all fall on the debate over whether the drug should be legalized but is isn't right now and I don't appreciate her bringing the paraphernalia and the substance in my house, even if she chooses to hide it (badly). The thing about deciding someone has no expectation of privacy while they live with you without bringing them in on the loop--it doesn't make me feel good. Confronting her about it is difficult because it immediately devolves into a discussion about invasion of privacy instead of disrespect of my household and livelihood bringing that shit in my house.

I wish I didn't feel it was necessary. If she were a grownup doing her grownup shit in her own grownup house with her own grownup money, I still want better for her but it has very little chance of fucking up my orbit. But that's not where we are at so that's not how we roll. I toss her shit, and I'm going to start throwing away anything I find that I don't want in my house. She'll know it's me but I want to make her challenge me about throwing out her bong or her weed. I want to have that discussion with her. I want her to tell me why it's worse for me to discard things that can actually get me fired from my home where she lives rent free than it is for her to bring them in my house to begin with. We won't have that conversation though. She'll just know (I hope) that while she lives with me, it won't be a place she can do stupid shit like that and it will motivate her to find her own place. I think I am learning more about how people hide this stuff now than I ever did working this stuff when I was younger. I guess its different when you live it. It's honestly the worst part of this entire stinking deal. The deception.

Woe to you would-be unborn children of mine-I am going to be a REALLY tough mother. Better your aunt than your mother because I will take no prisoners. Like white on rice my friend. I should probably stick to dogs.