I did not sign up for this
By ElicBxn
@ElicBxn (64022)
United States
October 24, 2025 1:33pm CST
I will be 72 in less than a month.
I never signed up to be a parent, except for cats.
In 2012 this friend of Viv's*, who's mother had called and asked if DD could live with us after she died back in like 2009 or 2010. Well, she passed in early January of 2012.
At the end of January I drove up to pick her, and her stuff up. It wasn't that long a car ride, a turn around about 6 or 7 hours. I had met DD a few times. Once we went to Dallas while she was working at the Lighthouse For the Blind up there. Another time we stopped and had lunch with DD and her mother. She came to visit twice.
She had complained about not getting to visit while Viv was living with Miranda*, but for a totally blind person, that house was NOT safe. Miranda was a hoarder. Another friend told her that she could tell where Viv went because the floor was clear. The day after we got (almost) everything out, we had to go back because we couldn't find one of her cats. The cat was hidden in Mir's room. Mir had called us when she found her, too late for me to be willing to go over.
The cat was hidden in some lamp shades that had no lamps, but were too valuable to get rid of. Since Viv hadn't given the key back, that was another thing we had planned to do that day, we got in. Mir was sitting on the side of her bed. She was using a reacher Connie had given her a year or so before to reach beside the file drawers she used as a bedside table. This was where she normally put her glasses. Sometime that night, the glasses got knocked off between the waterbed frame she used as a bed, with a regular mattress in it. No joke, the stuff in front of the file drawers was as high, or maybe a bit higher, than the bottom drawer. Because, without her glasses she couldn't see even as well as Viv could with her glasses. She had tried to tie a broken pair on her face to see. Now, I will not say I have perfect vision, even then, but mine was a whole lot closer then theirs. However, unlike Mir, I was not going to walk on boxes - not just papers, boxes! - to get to the file drawers and the cat who was under the lamp shades on top of a pile of stuff on top of the drawers. Viv and I did sort of a bucket pass while I worked my way in. I would hand her a box and she would toss it into her old room, which was mostly empty. Besides boxes I found broken glass. Viv got me a broom and dust pan to deal with it. I finally worked my way into the room to help Mir get her glasses. Then Viv, brought in the cat carrier and I got the cat and put her in the carrier. Viv left the key by the TV - Miranda's alter of worship - and we left. We honestly didn't hear from her for over a year.
So, DD was never made to do anything. Her mother basically told her to read a book while she fixed dinner. She was never made to clean anything. The first morning she was there as a roommate and not a visitor, she sat down at the table and wanted breakfast. Viv was working... you know, like a good job working. I was also working doing home health for Connie*. Viv told her this was breakfast this time, but she was going to have to figure out food for herself during the work day. She tried the next day. I think we took her to Walmart for food.
Now, by now we know I have food allergies and my worst one is corn protein. At that time we had 2 big fridges and a freezer. We gave her all of the side-by-side fridges' freezer for her breakfasts and lunches. We also gave her the top two shelves in the side by side fridge for her food. She got some cheap yogurt. When we were almost done, we went to Target to get a yogurt I could eat, because nobody else carried that flavor. We get home, we make her put her own stuff away so she knows where it is... I mean, we helped, she had probably never had to share anything before. We explained about recycling, basically gave her the rules. Not like school rules, just what we expected as common courtesy. Like, don't get into other people's stuff. The very next night I spied one of my yogurt cups in the trash... well, I knew it wasn't Viv. I knocked on the door and asked why she had gotten into my yogurt? "Oh, I just thought it was a sour chocolate pudding." Then she offered me one of hers... which had corn starch in it. She didn't get into my stuff again, I think she didn't like that she couldn't appease me. The entire almost 3.5 years she was with us it was like living with a spoiled princess teenager.
And now I have someone who is older than DD is now (if she's still alive) and I have another spoiled teenager. Now, there is one sort of difference, he had a stroke a few years back, before I even knew there was anyone like him out there.
He said he needed to wash clothes, that was over a week ago, it hasn't happened. He has washed all the dishes (most dirtied by the roommate) but Dear Lord I'm going to have to put things back where they belong! He has decided to rearrange my kitchen! He took the toaster oven out of the cabinet and hadn't put it back, and hadn't put it back. I finally told him he needed to do that. I couldn't lift it when we bought it, Viv had put it in place. And if I couldn't do it 15 or so years ago, guess what?
He acts like a teenager. Maybe not so spoiled, but all those bad things teens do - I didn't much, but my brother...
So, have you ever had to deal with an adult who isn't acting like an adult?
*All names are real but of deceased people.
4 people like this
4 responses
@RasmaSandra (90144)
• Daytona Beach, Florida
7h
Suddenly very glad I live alone, That is crazy having to put up with. Why do you do it?





