SOME KIND OF ANNIVERSARY
From: Journal 2002
The October phone bill arrived. Almost the entire bill was charges you incurred: $80 of the $98 total. When I gave you the bill to review and noted how much I needed from you you were furious with me, that I would even ask you to pay for your portion of the bill, and insisted we split the total evenly – claiming, rather remarkably, that it was unfair (of all things) to ask you to pay for charges you racked up. You then argued that “it's just easier” to split everything. And when the logic of that didn't impress me you then went on further still to complain that I was trying, somehow, to cheat you “over a few nickels.” You got so mad you stormed out of the room and slammed the bedroom door.
I don't know what to do with this. I don't know why you'd assume I want to pay for your phone calls. I can't imagine how it's unfair to request that you cover your own expenses. And I don't know how to respond to an adult storming out of the room and slamming the door. You were clearly upset. So was I.
This month and last you insisted I pay for long distance calls I did not make. You only wanted to pay for two of the five calls you made to Vancouver from the last bill. You insisted, over and over, that the other three were not your calls and (despite our both knowing I didn't make them) I paid for them rather than cause more drama. It was only a few dollars and maybe I could have forgotten or something, or maybe you were confused... And if I had money this would really not be a big deal. But I have no money. I saved up and planned to live on $6,000 for the year. Paying $10, $20, or $50 a month extra for calls I didn't make just isn't an option, no mater how compliant and communal I'm feeling.
Eventually, because this ridiculousness continued, I showed you all our past phone bills as evidence that this kind of expense was unprecedented before your arrival in Australia. Then, before I contact the phone company for their apparent error, I forced you to show me your phone book to confirm these calls weren't made by you. The most expensive calls, which you could easily see from the itemized list of numbers and charges, were in fact to your mother-in-law's cell phone. And you knew this. You knew this with this and each previous phone bill while claiming differently. The other major call you were asked to pay for, but were again denying making, turned out to be to your university's transcript office. It may come as a surprise to you but I didn't make this call and I feel that maybe you made the call...
When you got mad over the phone bills I just paid them – all of them – not because you reasoned with me or explained the situation or we came to an agreement but just because this is what I do in the role I've taken on. And, worse, I wasn't just friendly about all of this I was apologetic about all of it (for having upset you by asking for money to pay for your very expensive long distance calls.) To contrast, you had nothing to say afterwards. You had nothing to say about yelling at us for no reason, or about crashing around and slamming doors. You've even refused to talk about the issue further, or at all about bills. Then, just to top it off, totally out of the blue, you claimed that, along with cheating you on the previous phone bill (a totally outlandish statement that I don't even know how to contend with), “you're ripping us off in other ways too.”
I was totally blown away. Of course this came with no qualifying anecdotes or evidence of any kind. You just dropped this bomb and walked away, again. And so NOW what am I supposed to do? I keep getting pushed and pushed and pushed again. And now, backed into a corner, I'm being accused of actually being the aggressor – when nothing like this, and even the opposite, is true. This feels like the workings of a complete psychopath (maybe pair of them.)
We all know you folks came to “visit” us in Australia and wound up living off our generosity for months while, it appears, essentially stealing from us. This is not a matter of conjecture or opinion but a fact we all now know. We all have the bills and bank statements and emails. There is no other interpretation of events at this point. So what do I do?
But, actually, it's worse than this. On top of the phone bills you were late or just avoided paying other expenses – ones that would never have happened had you not offered to pay. Spending our days at the university, we never used electricity during the day. This meant that the most expensive bill we ever got, in the dead of winter, was $70 for the month. You insisted upon sitting all day in front of the television with your laptop and a space-heater blasting and said you'd happily cover the cost of doing so. You said and did this only after I explained that Australia wasn't Canada and that the bill would be enormous. But if you were paying I had no problem with it. Then the bill came. $142. I showed it to you and you suggested that because money was tight before finding work you would balance the books with your first real pay cheque. So I paid it.
You didn't suggest there were financial problems or ever ask for assistance of any kind. So what am I to assume? Well, I assume the opposite. I mean, why are you even here? If you have financial troubles Australia is not a cheap place even to get to nevermind live... Nobody hurting for money buys a $2,000 plane ticket, let alone a pair of them, just for fun. (And nobody on a budget stops off in Fiji for a week on their way to Australia.) So what is it? The real problem here is that if you guys are in some kind of financial trouble and decided the way out was to come here and take advantage of us then your diatribe over expenses (your own) makes still less sense – if that's possible. So what am I supposed to make of this? And who am I supposed to talk to about this if not you?
To make matters worse, your collective behaviour around our living situation – that of not cleaning up, never washing dishes, watching television constantly and not allowing anyone else to use it – makes all of this even more bizarre. (I mean, even totally bat-shit crazy things would happen. Things like complaining that you couldn't hear the television, my television, because I was making too much noise while washing your dirty dishes so that I could cook our dinner. And this was said while knowing that you sit with the television blasting late into the night every evening, long after we've gone to sleep... Totally bizarre – and yet you've never heard a complaint from me.) But now, in light of everything, this all feels markedly worse. I feel like either you are both monsters or monsters with financial troubles. What other option is there here? And how does this get resolved?
This chance to live together could have been one of fun and relationship building but instead we were robbed again and again and again – all while being accused of being thieves. My attitude of default compliance and not wanting to ruffle feathers came to an end the moment you accused me of cheating you. Yes, it took a full twenty-three years but you've managed to exhaust my tolerance and patience.
What makes all this worse still, if possible, is that all this came after your being very obviously deceptive around the sale of the car we co-own with Nick. Until now, ever the fool, I'd brushed this off. Before you arrived in Australia you said our car had a buyer who would pay $6,400 for it. Nick and I both agreed to the sale, but at no time did I receive any information about the sale of the car nor my third of money from the sale. And I never bothered you about it or even asked for details, assuming that if there was any news I would have it. So what about that? Why would I have to enquire or potentially fight for money everyone knows you owe me? Who is cheating who here? Who at this point appears to be acting criminally? None of this feels or looks like an accident but, instead, seems like the common and continual expression of your essential character...
Feeling fully frustrated and needing money to pay bills and just to return to Canada, as well as wanting a clear paper trail, I emailed you to request two week's rent, $239 (literally nothing: this would be equivalent to two nights at the hostel downtown), and half the upcoming electric bill, $71 (though probably more than $100 of which was actually your usage, judging by all our previous bills) – and I also asked about the car. Had I the money I probably would have still just paid the bills and asked for money later, but as well as being exhausted by it all I just didn't have the money to do so. Unsurprisingly, I got no money and no response. After the rent was withdrawn from my account I emailed again, saying that I was very upset that I didn't get any money for any of these expenses, that your part of the previous bill (nevermind all the others) was already twenty-three days late, there was now another due, and asking you what I was supposed to do about these bills.
An email response came. It read, “go fuck yourself” – followed by a great abundance of exclamation points, which really helped drive the point home.
Then one of you emailed to explain the car situation. You wrote:
Regarding the sale of the car, we sold it for 5900.00 not 6400.00 (this was the asking price). We had a major electrical fire 2 months before we were to sell the car and were told that we need to put the money up front to get it fixed and that we would be reimbursed when the recall for the problem was issued. They never reimbursed us this money which came to over 1500.00. GM said they were responsible for the ignition switch problem, but not the damage that the faulty switch caused.
Had we not fixed this problem the car would have been worthless. We simply took this 1500.00 from the sale of the car to pay for the repairs and divided the remainder into 3.
We have all the bills for the repairs and also the bill of sale. If we are ever reimbursed this 1500.00 because of our complaint against GM, this money will be divided into 3 as well.
Only, every word of this was bullshit. There was a recall on a faulty part but, as stated on the car company's website, the repair was made by the company at no cost to the owner. Further, you told us you were selling the car for $6,400 right before you came to Australia, not months earlier before your fictional fire. Just walk through your own stated chronology again. It makes no sense. On top of making no sense, nobody agreed to any of this.
Further still, Nick wholly denies your version of events and tells a very different story, and signed his name to his written statement of events. He spelled out for me what he knows to be true – which involves you telling him how you guys needed extra cash to get to Australia and wanted to take half the money for yourselves. How you made up some elaborate story about having had possession of the car, and having cared for it and incurred the many burdens and expenses of car ownership (something that would not have happened were it not co-owned with us), you really deserved the whole sale price but would settle merely for half, you know, just to cover your expenses. Apparently a free car wasn't enough of a gift. Most hilariously, Nick says you told him that I'd agreed to gifting you guys half the value of the car, just for being great people I suppose, if he was alright with it. He writes that he agreed under the circumstances and was given $1,500 the day the car sold, but did not see any transaction record or any details about the sale of the car. He also admitted that when you received the above email from me – about not paying bills and stirring up things and uncovering this theft – that you called him to say that I was being a jerk, to confirm the story about the car sale, and to tell him not to talk to me and, of course, not to mention to me that you called him.
That's fucked.
All of this is fucked.
And, as it would turn out, this was just the beginning.
Comments