The Worst of Times Leads to The Best of Times

***DISCLAIMER: Severely Strong Language and Some Adult Content...Reader Discretion Is Advised!***

For those of you who have wondered, as I know many of you have, I thought I'd fill you in on the details of our roommate's departure from the house...
It started last Monday afternoon, while I was sitting on the couch working on my knitting. Technically, it started before that, because for the past month or so, BJ and I have been staging a mass rebellion - unless we're expecting to have Addison, BJ and I have barely lifted a finger to keep up the house. I know that sounds pretty typical of me, but lately, I've been more inclined to clean and take care of things. Perhaps it's just my head catching up with my age... At any rate, the house is typically pretty messy, and we both stopped cooking full meals to boot. On the days when we have Addison, however, the house is clean and there is always a full meal on the table. Our rationale behind the rebellion was "We're not the only ones who live here, and if he doesn't work, he's got time to do SOMETHING in a day", but to our dismay, nothing seemed to faze him. Until Monday, that is, when he came into the house and started lecturing me about the condition of the house, and how someone would call DCS if they knew the house looked like that, and how BJ would never see Addison again. I recognized that he had a valid point, but reiterated - BJ and I were not the only ones living here, thus we were not solely responsible for household upkeep, and being unemployed and doing absolutely nothing else to help around the house (no help with food, bills, rent, cooking...wouldn't even do his own laundry [and we flatly refused to wash his clothes for him and make him that much MORE dependent]) gave him plenty of time and opportunity to do something other than sit on his ass and whine about how it sucked being so broke. So broke, I might add, that he could afford to go wherever he wanted whenever he wanted, pick up random sodas and fast food when he felt like it and smoke brand-name cigarettes. To top it all off, he'd even made a shitty remark about MY job, saying that a job opportunity his father had lined up for him would be "a pretty shitty job, but at least it'd be better than some bullshit fuckin' assembly line job".
When I restated our reasons for not doing much about the house, he got mad, mouthed off at me about how unfair I was being, and when I started in on the lack of help he's given us on anything since he started living with us, he barked at me and stormed off, then came back a few minutes later and apologized, expecting me to just let it go, and even saying "I knew if I didn't come back and apologize for the way I ran off at the mouth, you'd run and tell BJ and then he and I would get into it, so I figured it would be better for me to just say I'm sorry now than have to deal with anything worse later." First - don't apologize to me unless you mean it. Trying to avoid a confrontation is no reason to just say you're sorry. Second - don't expect to pull something like that and then subtly (or not-so) hint to me that I shouldn't tell BJ, especially when he lives in the same house and has to deal with Matt's crap, too.
So, I left a note for BJ, explaining what had happened and asking him to talk to Matt, because by that point I was incapable of civil speech. I went to work that afternoon and came home shortly after 11, hungry, tired and dirty. BJ hadn't eaten much, so we decided to make some fries, just for the two of us, because I was too tired to worry with making enough for three people. So, in my opinion, this was going to be OUR food. While the fries were cooking, we sat in the kitchen and munched on a few crackers, only to have Matt come in and start eating our snack. Out of a sleeve of crackers, BJ and I got maybe 5 crackers each. Matt ate the rest, then turned around and went back into his room, without saying much to either of us. This was not uncommon - not only would Matt just randomly begin eating our snacks, but he also wouldn't eat anything at all during the day unless BJ or I cooked something or he decided he wanted fast food. That particular trait was so severe that the previous day, Sunday, he'd driven 20 minutes to his father's house to eat there, because I wasn't planning on making anything big for lunch, and no one was home at BJ's mom's house. He actually made the statement "I was hoping they were home, I thought maybe I could go over there and get something to eat." We have food in the house, mainly because we hid a lot of it to keep Matt from devouring or wasting it all in a single sitting. We have rice, mac and cheese, cans of veggies, cans of fruit, ground beef, chicken breasts and wings, fries, frozen and fresh vegetables, pancake mix, muffin mixes, eggs, milk...the works. But it was too much trouble for him to make anything on his own, so he would rather have waited for one of US to make something - less trouble for him, and more time he could spend doing absolutely nothing, which included avoiding looking for a job.
So, after Matt finished our snack, I checked the fries, and Matt must have heard the oven door open, because he came back into the kitchen and got down a plate and was waiting anxiously at my side while I turned the fries. He asked if they were done, and I said, "No, and this is for me and BJ anyway." This must have upset him, because he put the plate back and sulked back into his room. I was getting more irritable by the second, so I went into the bedroom to lay down for a little while and rest my feet. As I lay there in the bed in just my panties, I heard the phone ring and glanced at the clock. It was 11:45 - damn near midnight! In this house, when the phone rings that late at night, it means something is very wrong, or someone has a reason to be worried about us. Anyone with any good reason to call knows, and most people just assume it's a courtesy, not to call after about 9 pm. Before either of us could reach the phone to read the caller ID, mainly because Matt kept the only fully functional phone in his room, Matt answered the phone as I swung my half-naked self out of bed, wondering out loud "Who has lost their damn mind to call this house THIS late?!" BJ came into the bedroom with me, fuming quietly at the irritant of the phone ringing so late, and we could clearly hear Matt in his room having a lively conversation with whoever was on the other end of the phone. After 15 minutes of overhearing his conversation, which never once included a statement about the lateness of the call, BJ went to Matt's room, knocked on the door and, when Matt answered it, said "I don't know who's on the phone, but are they out of their fucking mind to call here this late at night?" Matt got off the phone rather quickly...and then all holy hell broke loose in the house.
I was still in the bedroom, but since this is a very old house (1930s era, according to the local archives) the walls are thin enough that I heard the entire conversation between Matt and BJ, which quickly escalated to Matt yelling at BJ, who hadn't raised his voice. Matt defended whoever had called by saying "She didn't know, she's an hour behind us!" to which BJ responded "So that means it's 11 there...that's no better than calling at midnight, dude, that's just rude." That statement sent Matt into a fit toward BJ, telling him very loudly how rude he was and how BJ had blatantly and purposely disrespected him while his friend could hear the conversation. He also added that he allegedly "didn't have a chance to tell her", during a 15-minute conversation. I have a sneaking suspicion that Matt's friend was under the impression that this was only Matt's house, and that no one else lived here, or at the very least, that MATT made the rules. In my opinion, and BJ's - if you can't contribute to a household, you don't get to make rules for it.
It wasn't until a very specific statement that I came out of the bedroom. BJ asked Matt, "When did you plan to tell her it's not cool to call here after 9 (central time)?" and Matt screamed at BJ, "WHEN I FUCKIN' FELT LIKE IT!" Oh...no...he...did...not... Well, unfortunately, he did, and that's when I came skidding out of the bedroom still half-undressed (I had pulled a T-shirt on and was in the process of falling into a pair of lounge pants as I skidded) and called out "How about when you pay the damn phone bill? Or any bill for that matter?" Matt responded to this by informing BJ that he needed to "just shut her the fuck up". BJ told him "Dude, I don't play middle man for anyone...you got something to say to Kati, you tell her yourself, she's a big girl, she can take it." He didn't say anything to me, so I didn't say anything else to him, at least not then. As the one-sided argument Matt was creating with BJ raged on, Matt got more and more upset because he knew he'd messed up, and rather than admit it - he headed across the room and punched a wall. I'm not sure if you've ever known anyone who's punched 70s-style half-inch-thick wood panelling...but suffice it to say that the panelling will win, every time. So, with bloody, bruised knuckles, Matt started screaming at BJ, "GET THE FUCK OUT OF MY FACE! JUST GET THE FUCK OUT! GET THE FUCK OUT OF MY FACE!" BJ, I might add, never left the doorway, and never actually went into the room. He stood in the dining room/office the entire time, leaning against the door frame. I called out to Matt, "If you did any kind of damage to the wall by punching it like a spoiled brat, you'll be the one paying to replace it, and good luck finding panelling to match it. We'll add that to your tab, since you've already ruined one of the shutters by jerking it off the side of the house. Don't think for a second that BJ and I are going to pay for the stuff you fuck up around this house." And Matt responded by screaming at ME this time "SHUT THE FUCK UP!" No...no, he didn't get to play the injured party that night, he was not a victim of anything but his own stupidity. I waited a few seconds, and then asked "Are you done having your tantrum now? Or would you rather just punch another wall you'll get to pay for?" This time, he went back to telling BJ to "shut her the fuck up, man, just tell her to shut the fuck up and not to talk to me." BJ told him again, he's not a middle man, and this time walked away from Matt's room. Matt closed the door, and BJ came in to check on me (by that point, I was in the kitchen, tending to the fries). We went into the office so I could check my email and eat my snack before bed, and we talked quietly with each other, not about Matt, but about US - he was making sure I wasn't going to have a stroke, and I was making sure he wasn't going to have one.
In the middle of our talk, Matt swung his door open a little and demanded that BJ come talk to him, interrupting us. I turned toward his door and said, "Matt, my best advice to you right now is to just close the door and wait a minute. BJ and I are talking right now...that means he is talking to ME and I am talking to HIM. No one is talking to you, no one is talking about you, you are not part of this conversation. So, I suggest you just shut the door and wait your turn." True to his form that night, he swung the door open the rest of the way and leaned through it and said "The door's still open...what are you gonna do about it? You gonna make me close it? You gonna come close it? I'll leave it open if I want to, I'll leave it open all fuckin' night if I want, I don't have to listen to you!" So I turned to him, and with my most patronizing face and tone possible, said "Awwwww, is him gonna have a li'l hissy fit? Is him gonna throw a li'l tantrum like a 3-yr-old?" He looked at me and asked if that was supposed to make any sense, and I responded with "Maybe if it hadn't sailed about 8 ft over your head..." He still didn't get it. Instead, he launched off into a rant about he had every right to talk to his best friend, and how I needed to just stay the fuck out of it and keep my fuckin' mouth shut...and that's when I lost it. You do NOT talk to me like that in a house that I actively help pay for, especially after doing nothing for 4 months but sit around, whine, cry and throw fits as it pleases you. I had had enough. So, I told him:
"First off, you will NOT talk to me like that in THIS house, a house that BJ and I pay for, a house that BJ and I put together, a house that YOU have done absolutely NOTHING for. Second, if you even THINK you have the right to talk to me like that, you can think again, and get the fuck out, right now. The only thing you're pissed about is that someone called you on your stupid juvenile bullshit. You wanna talk about rude and disrespectful? Okay, let's do that...let's talk about someone who has done nothing but abuse the hell out of two people who agreed to help him so he could help himself. Let's talk about someone who's done nothing for 4 months, aside from sitting on his ass in a house he doesn't help out with, eating food he doesn't pay for, using utilities he doesn't pay for, and taking and using things that aren't his, like, oh, I dunno...towels, cologne, shampoo, body wash, clothes, electronics... Let's talk about someone who won't do a God damn thing to help around the house, then get up the nerve to bitch about the condition of the house. Let's talk about someone who won't cook or clean, and then bitch when he's hungry and has no clean laundry. Let's talk about someone who can't afford to buy any food for the house, but who can buy whatever he damn well pleases, including expensive cigarettes, fast food and anything else he wants. Let's talk about someone who has done absolutely nothing but take full and complete advantage of someone he claimed to love like a brother, and someone else he claimed to love like a sister. Let's talk about that, sound good? No? Nothing? You're not gonna talk? Okay, I'll talk...ever since you came back to Tennessee, you have been absolutely worthless. (He interrupted me here, and I informed him, very loudly, "NO! You didn't wanna talk before, you don't get to talk now! I'M talking right now, you'll wait til I'm finished!") You came home in bad shape, and we all felt bad for you. You caught a pretty raw deal down in Atlanta, and that sucked. We told you to come stay with us because you had nowhere else to go, and because we missed you and wanted you to come home and leave a relationship that was doing nothing but hurting you and making you miserable. And when you came home, you told us you'd help us out, you'd get a job, you'd do whatever it took to get yourself back on your feet. When we moved out of the house in Millersville, we told you to come here with us, because we wanted you to come, we wanted you here with us. Since then, and before then, you have done NOTHING you said you would, and have even gone so low as to take cheap shots at the job I have, even though I'm one of the two people in this house who HAS a job. Every time someone's tried to help you get a job, you've either ignored it, written it off as "bullshit", or fucked it up so you wouldn't have to do it anymore. I almost lost my job at Penneys because you refused to help me get to work after BJ had to sell his car rather than fix it, just so we could make ends meet. I called out of work 4 times in two weeks while you sat on your ass and fucked around on the computer, because it was easier for you to do that than lift a finger to help us out. You've wasted more food than I care to think about, you've eaten the food set aside for BJ's lunches without a single thought to it, and you've completely decimated all the food that Baker (a friend of ours) bought JUST for BJ's daughter (Baker bought some chicken tenders and patties for Addison, so she'd have snacks and so we'd always have something healthy to give her, even if we were broke, and Addison got 5 tenders...Matt ate the rest, knowing full well that they were only for Addison). You've brought people over to the house whenever you've felt like it without warning us we'd have company, you have people calling here at all ungodly hours of the day and night, and you think that's okay. You've tried to get people from other states to come here, to THIS house, so you could hook up with them for a night, without warning us at all, and you think that's okay. You've even gone far enough as to get pissed at US and come into OUR room to wake ME up at 7 in the morning because the same girl you tried to hook up with from West Virginia told you a crock of shit about us harassing her on the phone and you believed her, and that's totally okay to you. Let me tell you something, it's NOT okay, and we said as much to you, and you completely tuned us out. If that's how you think you can treat two people who have busted their asses to help you, who have damn near killed themselves to provide for and take care of a household, who are going broke by the day trying make this house work, and who have tried every possible way to excuse your childish bullshit, then you can pack your shit and get the fuck out of OUR house, RIGHT NOW."
He attempted to interrupt me several more times during my speech, but I cut him off each time with "No, I'm not done yet!" He tuned out most of that, and only said "I don't have do to a fuckin' thing you tell me. I'm on the lease, you can't make me leave, I'll stay here as long as I fuckin' want!" Then, he turned to BJ and said "BJ, what happened to you saying 'I don't care if it takes you 6 months to find a job'?" BJ, who'd remained quietly smoking a cigarette in a corner until then, stepped over to the doorway and very calmly said, "You're right, I did say that. And I'll tell you right now, when I said it, I had no idea you'd use that as an excuse to do nothing for all this time. I said it on the good faith that maybe, just maybe, you'd go out and actually TRY to find a job, rather than waiting 3 months to have a complete emotional breakdown in front of me, Kati, Momma, Stasia AND Baker. And after you had your little episode, you apologized for the way you'd been acting and swore up and down that you'd do something about it, so you went out and looked for a job for ONE day. Then, you proceeded to sit on your ass for the next SIX days and wait for a job to look for you. Then when Baker gave you another job, you blew it so you wouldn't have to do it anymore. And when your dad tried to hook you up with a job, you just blew it off as 'bullshit'. Then, of course, you had the nerve to make a shit remark about Kati's job, even though at that point in time, she had TWO jobs she was going to attempt to balance so she could actually be productive and proactive in making this house run. And now, you want to sit there, and spit my words back at me? No, you don't get to do that, because two days of job searching out of 4 months doesn't entitle you to SHIT. You haven't done any more than that, and don't even bother trying to say you did. I know for a fact that you didn't call any of the numbers Baker or your dad gave you, and you didn't fill out any online applications." Here, Matt got pissed off and yelled "Yes, I DID fill out online applications!" That's when BJ let him know, "No, you didn't. I know, because I check the history and cookie folders on all the computers in the house,and the only thing ever comes up are the sites that Kati and I go to and, in your case, MySpace, Facebook, WOWBeez, Warcraft, Cam4, Youtube, porn, dating sites, hook-up sites and singles sites. That's IT. And that's ALL. Even after Kati and I gave you that list of job search sites, the same ones we used to get our jobs. There wasn't a single site in the entire computer history that linked to a company application or a job search, so don't you dare sit there and lie to my face." At that point, Matt just hung his head and said "I'll be out of here by tomorrow. I'll call my dad in the morning and let him know I gotta move back in." I grabbed the phone and said "Oh, no, I think you'll call him now." Matt got pissed again and said "It's too fuckin late to call my dad, you don't know how he is about that shit!" I held the phone out to him and said "Oh, believe me, I have an idea how he is about that, and if it's okay in your book for some chick in Colorado to call THIS house at "OH MY GOD" at night, it should be perfectly FINE for you to call your dad at the same time. So get on the fuckin phone and prove your own point." He just sat there and stared, finally realizing how badly he'd fucked up this time, and as he took the phone and went back into his room, BJ said very quietly, "Not to be an asshole right now, but for what it's worth - you can be out tomorrow if you want to, but I was gonna give you til Friday." Then, he turned to me and asked "Is that alright with you?" I agreed, and Matt just shook his head and said "No, I'll be outta here tomorrow, cause that's what ya'll want. Ya'll want me to go, so I'll just go and make everything easier for you two."
His room was completely cleaned out and empty by 4 pm the next day, a little over 14 hours after the war.
Prior to him leaving with the majority of his things (it took him two trips to get everything out and stored where he could find places), he stopped and talked to us long enough to apologize to us for the way he'd acted and for what he'd said to us, and for how hard things had been for us because of him. He also threw in how hard it was going to be, living with his dad again, becuase "I gotta go by his rules now, and that means I have to be in church every Sunday, and I only have a week to find a job or he'll throw my ass out on the street." If he was looking for sympathy from us, he wasn't going to get it. Not after the way he'd treated us and spoken to us, not after everything we'd done to try to help him, and not after he'd killed any kind of respect we might have had for him. He said his goodbyes and left. He came back the other day to let us, or at least BJ (I was napping before work) know that he got a job. And funny - he's working for the same company I work for. His job will be a security guard position, but I just find it amusing that he works for Electrolux, too, after making his remark about how shitty my job is. What goes around...you know the rest.
So, there you have it - the circumstances of Matt's departure.
Already, BJ and I have noticed the changes. The house is clean, there are full meals on the table again, there are actually leftovers for BJ and I to take to work, we have the privacy we need so that we can be ourselves again, and we actually feel comfortable having his family over to visit or have dinner. We invited his sister over for dinner tonight, and had a wonderful time. We've also noticed the changes in each other. We're both a lot less irritable now, we're more affectionate with each other, we spend more simple time together, like sitting in the office together working on our respective projects, watching a movie on the couch, or even just cuddling at night before we go to sleep; we help each other more around the house, we talk more, and we both feel more confident in our home. We're not as worried now about covering the next bill or the next months' rent, or making sure there's enough food for Addison to eat. We used to come home from work and just assume positions in separate corners of the house - BJ in the living room at the laptop, me in the office or in the bedroom - each of us doing our own thing, away from anything and anyone in the house. At night, we'd both just stumble in and fall into bed and lay on opposite sides while our minds went berserk with stress and kept us awake. We're more calm and more relaxed now, and for the first time since we've been together, we actually feel totally confident that we can do this, like we can make this work. We don't feel like we have Fate breathing down our necks, waiting to strike and take it all out from under us. And we've talked about that, and even if it happens - we know we'll be able to pull it together and make it work. Just in the 7 months we've been together, we've been through a lot, probably more than I've faced with anyone else. This might not seem very traumatic from the outside, but to see us the way we were as opposed to the way we are now, it's apparent to anyone that we're better than we've ever been, we're happier and more comfortable, and we plan to make sure it just keeps getting better, no matter what.
So, once again, life is good, and BJ and I are both in good capable hands...each other's!