An open letter to my eldest step-son

An open letter to my eldest step-son.

I don’t know if you made a note to yourself, but yesterday was cause for celebration.  Yesterday marked the one year anniversary….only one year left until you pack your bags for the final time…and walk off into oblivion.

When a couple in their 40’s get together, like your mother and me, there is a good chance that one or both will have some “baggage” from their previous relationships.  I had heard about this baggage, so looked it up on the internet.  Typically the baggage they speak of is emotional and financial.  I have never heard of children being referred to as baggage but then they have never met you.

For five years now my frustration with your narcissistic attitude and your complete lack of respect for yourself and everyone around you has been getting to me, but yesterday was a turning point.  Rather than unleashing a scathing attack on your stupid ass, I decided it would be better to make the countdown a pleasant one.  Rather than list all of the things you do that piss me off on a daily basis, I decided to look on the positive side and thank you, yes…thank you for giving me real insight into the life of a moron.

My younger brother is mentally challenged.  He was born that way.  He has spent most of his life in and out of facilities, being studied and adjusted…if you will.  Today if you looked at him, you could tell he was different, odd….not quite normal.  The thing is…he is officially “not normal” whereas you have made being a moron a sport.  You are the most abnormal normal person I have ever met….but I digress.  This is going to be positive. Let’s begin shall we?

1. Thank you for coming into my life.  I never expected to fall for a woman with 3 kids but stranger things have happened.  If a man can love a woman and overcome the level of irritation that you cause in the process, you have in fact made me a better person AND have proven to me and those around us that I do truly love your mother.  Again I thank you!
2. Thank you for plopping your ass down in the couch the day mom and I moved in together.  Thank you for not noticing the antique marble table top leaning against the back of the couch.  Thank you for knocking it over and smashing it into a million pieces.  I know it wasn’t on purpose, that you never saw it but…if you were actively helping at all..rather than trying to watch TV in the middle of a move…it might not have happened.
3. Thank you for never shoveling the snow….ever!  You don’t know how happy it makes me feel to come back from a day’s work, after a white-knuckle ride in the snow…to find you sleeping or playing video games.  No…don’t get up!  I don’t mind shoveling a four foot drift from in front of the garage door…before I can even park the car.
4. Thank you for drinking every drop of liquid in the house.  I appreciate that you are only trying to help me with my weight.  Soda has 150 calories in a can…so your downing an entire case of 12 in less than a day is quite honorable.  You know I was going to mix that ginger ale with whiskey, so technically you are helping my liver too!  Again, thank you!
5. Thank you for never showering.  I overheard you on a number of occasions bragging to your brothers about not showering for 2 weeks.  Personally I don’t know why you only shared something that big with them…why didn’t you post it on Facebook?  I have never met anyone that was so proud of their lack of hygiene…You the man!
6. Thank you for continuously taking my clothes…ruining them and then hiding or better yet disposing of them.  I really appreciate how you turned my leather cowboy boots into a mess of leather that more closely resembled road-kill than it did something one would wear on their feet.  I really appreciate you bring me up to date in the fashion department.  Some of the clothes that you took I had for a long time…as I take care of them…and you managed to destroy them in one wearing…but I had to buy new ones…thank you!
7. Thank you for blowing my speakers…on two occasions.  I know that it is necessary to listen to music and the TV at plaster-splitting volume…but twice?  I had the first set of speakers for 20 years so they survived my head-banging days…but you somehow blew them…ripped the cones right out…impressive actually.  Anyway thank you, because I finally got the new speakers I have wanted…you know the ones that are in the locked cabinet under the TV, so that no one…not even I can use?
8. Thank you for giving me a reason to learn how to install electronic key-less locks on every door in the house.  With your continuous borrowing of my clothes, shoes, money and cologne from our bedroom, that was the first.  Your brothers got jealous that they didn’t have locks on their doors…or socks in their drawers because you always took theirs.  Always wondered if that was some sort of perverted fetish of yours…wearing other people’s socks?  Just wondered.
9. The locks really got crazy when I had to do the laundry room so you would stop washing and drying one shirt at a time.  Again thank you! The extra money I spent on electricity might have piled up and your mother may have insisted that we take you on vacation with us! The lock on the pantry was your mother’s idea.  It took me a while to convince her that your drinking a case of soda a day was for MY own good but one day she went to get a drink, three hours after buying a case…and there was none.  Thank you!
10. Speaking of cologne…thank you for using an ENTIRE new bottle..on more than one occasion…of MY Armani cologne to spray on ONE spider in your bedroom. $125 worth of cologne to TRY and kill one itty bitty spider that you could have easily squished with a tissue…still makes me wonder…but thank you!
11. Thank you for coming home at 3AM almost every night/morning…I know you were studying with a friend…. all of the studying that you have done in the past few years explains your extremely high marks….and yes I know that F stands for fabulous…and that many things have changed since I went to school.  Thank you for enlightening me..and thank you for slamming all the kitchen cabinet doors and pounding your feet up the stairs…awakening me…almost every day!  I had probably had enough sleep by then…thank you!
12. Thank you for showering with the curtain wide open, and for not using the bath mat when you get out.  The 1/8 of an inch of water that covers the entire floor after you shower really does make the tiles look new! Unfortunately the ceiling in the dining room is suffering from water stains and will have to be painted…again.  Thank you for helping me improve my painting skills!
13. Thank you for letting me see how you cut down on washing the dishes.  Your explanation (when I caught you at 3AM) as to how your eating directly out of the bowl of leftovers and then returning said bowl to the fridge was a learning experience.  I had never thought about the extra time AND water use required to clean a bowl of your own.  The possible transfer of whatever diseases you may have via you lack of hygiene makes it particularly appealing.  I NEVER eat leftovers in our house…so thank you!
14. Thank you for forgetting to flush the toilet seemingly every time you use it.  I appreciate that you “didn’t want to wake anyone” because you do your daily “duties” at 3 in the morning but I’d rather wake from you flushing the toilet than to wake to the scent of beer enhanced urine every morning.  I don’t know why…but you always seem to remember to flush after #2…and for this I thank you.  A REALLY big thank you.
15. Thank you for those special occasions where you took the entire container of chicken (the ones where your mom decided to cook two days worth at once) to your room, ate one piece and left the rest on your desk, with no lid for the next 20 hours.  Again I’m not so big on eating the same thing day after day…you saved me! Thank you!
16. Thank you for leaving the TV, computer, X-box, lights on all night…all day…heck all of the time seemingly until I turn them off.  Thank you! Once more if I had that extra money that you waste your mom might want to buy you something…a thought which disturbs me greatly.  Sorry about the porch light though.  You insistence in turning it on in the middle of the day…every day…and leaving it on got to me.  I cut through the power supply line to the porch…so now nobody has light.  All in all I will save even more on power…so thank you!
17. Thank you for listening to me in regards to smoking, specifically your butts.  To be honest I didn’t think that you listened to anything I said…but this proves me wrong.  Thank you for listening when I said it was unsightly and ridiculous to have to try and carefully place the latest butt into the ashtray with such precision as to not knock over the massive pile of butts already in the tray.  I suggested it far easier to empty the ashtray before it got that full.  Thank you for listening and emptying the ashtray, complete with your latest smouldering butt into the garbage can under the sink…in the house.  Thankfully your mom and I come home early on Friday so we were able to extinguish the fire.  Thank you however for remaining in the house…..maybe next time! Thank you for discontinuing the use of the ashtray and throwing your butts all over the front lawn.  It actually seems like a good idea until the snow melts and the butts stand out on the lawn like the stars in the Milky Way…just as many…just as awesome.  Special mention to your latest “butt control system”…removing the lit end of the cigarette with your fingers, dropping it onto the cedar deck and putting the balance of the butt in your coat pocket.  While I appreciate the artistic side of all the black burn marks on the light colored wood deck…I find the lack of common sense on your part disturbing…not shocking ( I am used to you now) but disturbing none the less.  Thank you once more for remaining in the house while the deck was smouldering…well maybe next time!  Your coats now smell worse than an ashtray…but thank you.  I used to get a bit nauseated when I walked by a beggar on the street…those guys smell you know…but thanks to you…nothing!  I could actually hug them! Thank you!
18. Thank you for cleaning up after yourself.  I especially like it when you spill and entire can of soda on the floor and quickly (far more quickly than it takes me to do something properly) spread all of the soda from one wall to the other…so when it dries the ENTIRE floor is a sticky mess.  Thank you…no seriously…cream soda on white tile looks kind of cool!
19. Thank you for leaving the front and back doors unlocked when you leave, again special mention for when you leave the door not only unlocked, but ajar.  The truth is the fresh air that gets in, especially in winter when it is 15 below zero…cleanses the air of your foul stench and is good for the health of the rest of us.
20. Thank you for piling your dirty plates, banana peels, half finished sodas, under the couch, under your bed, in your drawers, under your sheets.  I am happy that we don’t have vermin yet…but happier that the spiders that you hate so much seem to converge on your room with such regularity…could it be that they like 2 week old fried chicken bones? Anyways thank you for being such a pig; it makes it easier to teach your younger brothers when we can provide a visual of how not to act.
21. Thank you for take the phone(s) every single day and not putting them back on their base.  You give me a cardio workout every day when I have to go looking for them.  When you go the extra mile and put the phone between your mattress and box spring you give me an extra workout in two ways…extra time spent looking=more calories burned.  Why you would put the phone there in the first place makes me wonder=more brain power used.  Thank you!
22. Thank you for sleeping in the same bed day in day out and never washing your sheets, never vacuuming the bed etc.  I have never seen a mattress that looks like yours.  Quite honestly looks like a big brown skid mark on a white mattress.  I am sorry that I had to stop cleaning your room a while back but I found it was making me dizzy…so gave up on behalf of my health.
23. Thank you for borrowing anything from your mom, like Visine, nail clippers, Advil, sewing thread, moisturizing cream…anything and then NEVER returning it.  I know that possession is 9/10 of the law but that typically applies to things that happen outside of the family household.
24. Thank you for moving out a year ago…ok I kicked you out…but I did give you $700 for first and last.  Thank you ever so much for pleading with your mom to move back…after 2 days and $0 in your pocket.  I really appreciate that!  Next time I want to burn through seven bills that quickly I think I will go downtown and pay someone to shove their entire arm up my ass…dry.  I’m sure it would feel better!
25. Thank you for banging on the bedroom door and yelling out “What’s wrong with MY internet”  on a regular basis. Just for the record, the internet access is mine because I pay for it and god knows I have been timed out on numerous occasions because of your stupid gaming sucking up the bandwidth.  Thank you for interrupting what was going on in the bedroom.  I know that it might be hard for you to imagine that on those odd days when you do find yourself at home at a “normal” hour that your mom and I are taking a “nap” at 2 in the afternoon…but the truth is we were fucking.  Yes…fucking.  Ten minutes of no kids, no stress..until YOU have to fuck it all up by banging on the door.  Can’t you figure it out on your own??? I expect this from your younger brother because he actually thinks we are napping…but you are 22 years old for fuck sakes!
    Anyways, thank you…I appreciate sex even more after three consecutive days of ALMOST reaching orgasm.
26. Sorry about having to take the window cranks off your windows as I am sure your stench even gets to you after a while…but I had no choice.  I see that you can open the windows with no problem but it is the closing part that seems to confuse you.  I don’t know if it was the ruined hardwood floor when you left it wide open during a torrential downpour in the summer or two weeks ago when you left it open when the temperature dropped to -20 but one way or another your forgetfulness is going to cost me more than you are worth!  Thanks for helping me find more reasons to dislike you!
27. Thank you for your creative story on how the laptop I had bought you (for school which you never attended) got stolen during your two day absence from the house…and then having the balls to ask if I would buy you another one…nice touch!
28. Thank you for your creative stories…they are a real eye opener.  The one just the other day when you told me with a complete look of awe on your face, “Did you know that you can buy used school books for less than new?” Umm…I really…really don’t know what to say to that…especially since we are three weeks into the semester and typically you need books by day two!! Anyways Einstein looks like school has been good to you…you are learning new and increasingly more awesome things every day.
29. Thank you for showing me proof that you were in fact in school last semester.  I appreciate that you made notes that 50 % of the class failed the same courses that you failed…makes it seem more palatable.  I noticed that you didn’t retake any of the failed courses this semester so I assume you will be taking them after you leave our house.  You didn’t think that you were going to turn a three year college term into a lifetime of half-assed effort…all while driving me closer and closer to certain insanity….did you?

So once more, thank you.  There are countless other things you have done and continue to do on a regular basis that I should thank you for…but for the time being will leave as is.  You see I really am excited that there are now only 364 days left until you leave…more excited than you can possibly imagine.  I’m already thinking about how fresh the house will smell, how much money I will save, how much better I will sleep, how I will listen to my music once more…and how I will be able to fuck your mother without interruption.

Thank you!