Cathy...Part Two

As weeks passed Cathy began speaking to me again, trying to be overly nice and friendly. As much as I disliked her I responded to her because I’m not the type of person to really shun anyone and since we had to live in the same house it was better that we were all cordial to one another. She still pulled all her bullshit crap and I still hated it but there was nothing I could do about it so I did my best to tolerate everything.

There was one Sunday when a relative of hers came to the shelter to visit her and her kids and they completely took over the lower common room. My kids had been sitting there watching TV and decided they wanted lunch so we went upstairs to eat. By the time we got back downstairs there wasn’t a space left on the sofa so I collected the toys my kids had left there and we all went into our room to watch a DVD together. My friends Mark and Ursula had given me a laptop as a Christmas gift so the kids could watch Netflix or videos in our room. The kids weren’t happy to be in our room that day but I just explained that the common room would be available soon enough. It wasn’t.

Visitors could stay until 6:00 and that’s exactly what her relative did. My kids couldn’t watch TV in there all day and the upper common room was occupied by other residents so the kids and I just hung out together. At one point I left our room to go outside to have a smoke and was disgusted. Cathy was changing her baby’s shitty diaper on the sofa where everyone in the house sits. Her room was about three steps away from the sofa but the lazy bitch didn’t bother getting up to do the right thing; another broken rule on her part.

The following weekend Chatty had a headache. Apparently he had a headache so bad that he couldn’t do anything; he lay on the sofa all day long on Saturday and Sunday watching TV. Another two rules broken by Cathy. First of all because no resident is permitted to lie down on the sofas because it doesn’t leave room for anyone else to sit there. Second, because if your child is sick the child must stay in the resident’s room unless the family is eating. When Dolly wasn’t feeling well and stayed home from school one day I had to keep her in our room even though none of the other residents were home. I guess that didn’t apply to Cathy and to make matters worse she let him stay downstairs while she was upstairs watching TV with her friends.

That Sunday my kids were outside playing with L’s daughter and L and I were chatting. Cathy came outside for whatever reason and L walked over to ask her how Chatty was feeling. She suggested that Cathy take him to a doctor and offered Cathy some headache medicine for him. L told Cathy that usually when a kid has a headache that bad it means he’s getting the flu. They finished talking, L came back and sat with me, and my kids decided to go inside to watch TV. Chatty had gone upstairs to eat so I told my kids to stay downstairs away from him because I didn’t want them getting sick. Well, I guess he finished eating because he appeared downstairs and tried to play with my kids.

Did I mention that he not only talks non-stop but that he was really pushy and got in people’s faces to talk to them? Well that was him. My kids told me he wouldn’t leave them alone so I told them to go upstairs and leave him downstairs. He followed them and Zach came back downstairs to tell me. I told them to come back downstairs. Out of the blue Cathy storms out onto the back stoop and yells at me, “Am I going crazy or did you tell your kids not to play with my son because they might get sick?!” I told her I did say that. She proceeded to scream at me telling me I had no right to tell them to stay away from him because he wasn’t sick.

I simply told her that he’d been sick with a headache for two days straight and I didn’t want my kids around him until she found out what was wrong with her son. Then she went on to discuss my kids who she apparently thought had been sick weeks before but had been all over the house. Zach had come back outside and heard her and started to tell her that none of them had been sick but Ty had allergies which would account for his coughing. She looked at my son and told him to but out because she was talking to me and it was none of his business. I got really defensive and told her not to speak to my kid that way.

She continued to scream at me, and I mean scream. Then she really got to me and was lucky she was across the yard from me. I don’t recall the entire sentence she said but it contained the words, “your God damned kids…” Fuck that!!! I lost my temper real quick. I yelled at her that nobody refers to my kids that way and that she needed to shut her mouth; I was taking it to staff. I flew past her into the office where staff was on the phone. I very rudely told him I needed his attention, closed the door and told him what had happened. Since he couldn’t do anything to help he had to call FC who, after getting all the details simply told him to tell me to keep my kids away from Chatty and for me to stay away from Cathy, that it would be handled the next day when CM got there.

Was she fucking kidding? Did she really think I was going anywhere near that bitch on purpose? I think I’ve already told you that FC didn’t do much and apparently was on call for problems but left them to be handled by CM. What the fuck was she getting paid to do? I still have no clue. Regardless, I loaded my kids into our room and got them ready for bed. The next morning I knew there was going to be a house meeting because this was the second incident that had happened on a weekend involving the same residents. Mind you, I was the target in both incidents yet I hadn’t done a fucking thing to provoke any of it. The outcome of the house meeting basically confirmed to me that Cathy was queen of PRD and the rest of us were just there to take her abuse. You’ll see why when I come back tomorrow.

Until next time…peace to all.