So, I chatted with AFKS last night. His sister in law is up to the usual.

Every month at bill time she asks AFKS and his wife to come over and help her figure her shit out. AFKS said, "I'll go, but if I say word one it's gonna start with, "BITCH, LISTEN UP" and end with "OR I'LL TAKE THAT CHECK BOOK AND SHOVE IT UP YOUR. . ."

His wife cut him off.

So, she decided she was gonna run the help show for the week while AFKS sat on the couch and tried to tune out the conversation.

Since sister-in-law's husband knew it was bill paying day, he had gone out to actually pay some bills. This will be important later.

So, Mrs. AFKS says, "do you have enough money to pay all your bills this month?"

SiL says, "probably, but here's what I was thinking. . ." She then detailed an extensive plan wherein she called every place that she had a bill from and found out how much she had to pay to have service retained, not have her account closed, etc., etc., etc.

Mrs. AFKS says, "Why? If you can pay it, pay it."

"But what about food!?" As AFKS has explained to me, food shopping is SiL's code for "I need to go to Walmart and SHOP SHOP SHOP till I DROP DROP DROP." It happens about three times a week.

So, Mrs. AFKS runs around the house looking in all the cupboards, the freezers, the fridge and wherever else they had food and made a list of everything they had. Then she sat down with a notebook and figured out quick, relatively healthy meals that would get them by for up to three weeks without having to buy more food.

In the meantime, Mr. SiL calls and says he's paid this bill, that bill, and that bill. SiL began to come unglued. "Why would you do that?" he heard her say frantically, her plan falling apart around her.

Then, once off the phone, Mrs. AFKS says to SiL, "Here's how you can eat for up to three weeks without having to go buy food," and shows her the notes.

Now, AFKS has said he's heard about this before, but never been witness to it. He said SiL got up, and as she walked towards the couch she said, "no, we can't, Mr. SiL won't like, we can't eat the same thing twice, there's no way. . ." then she sat on the couch and went through a full power cycle.

No, he said she just shut off. He's never seen anyone do that before. She just sat there, eyes glazed over, and disappeared into herself. They tried to talk to her, but she was off and gone. So, they stuck around to take care of the kids until she woke up out of whatever stupor she had gone into. Once she woke up, she said, "you guys don't need to be here anymore."

Mrs. AFKS said, "we were just trying to help."

SiL said, "well, you didn't. Now go." And pushed them out the door.

SiL and Mr. SiL are broker than broke. And in some way they know they need help with it. But they refuse any help offered. Well, SHE refuses any help offered. They've already driven her parents off from helping, and they're fast destroying the tenuous relationship they have with his parents by demanding more and more money to help out month to month. And still, complete and utter refusal to accept the truth.

AFKS is a little worried about the kids, yet again. Somehow SiL has managed to keep their rental place, even though they should have been tossed out about two months ago for lack of payment. It's a sticky, icky, nasty situation that doesn't seem to present an amicable solution. If it weren't for the kids, AFKS is pretty sure everybody would have just shrugged and watch those two flush themselves down life's toilet by now. But it's scary watching someone so deliberately destroy all chances at hope.

BREAK

Mrs. NFB was shocked I still haven't ate my M&Ms this week, nor have I ate my bag-o-grease chips with my lunch. I made us burgers and fries for supper last night. Hers with her usual big slice of velveeta (because she doesn't like cheese as much *SHRUG*) and mayo on one bun, ketchup and mustard on the other. Mine, cheese free (I usually go for colby-jack) and with no mayo, ketchup or mustard. Just a little A1 smeared on the burger before capping it.

Mrs. NFB looks at the burgers before I load up the fries and says, "No cheese?"

"Nope."

"No mayo, ketchup and mustard either?"

"I put a little A1 on it."

"THAT'S NOT GOING TO BE GOOD!"

"Sure it is, I used to do it all the time."

She looked at me liked I had lost my mind.

Later, she apologized. "I'm sorry about my comments on your food. I should try to be more supportive."

"It's OK sweety. It's not like you're preventing me from doing what I want to do."

But still, there's a tension building. Tension is not our normal mode of operation so it's an unusual feeling.

It'll be interesting to see how the weekend plays out. We have a trip to the drive-in planned tonight, which is usually a eat-a-thon for us. Then our usual go-out to eat Saturday thing. I'm gonna find a way to keep it all under control. I'm thinking fruit smoothy at the drive-in and small popcorn instead of the large buttery mess I usually end up with plus some other greasy food concoction they've got. I guess I'll see. Going out, I'll just watch what I get and keep the portions I eat sane. It'll likely be a test, but one I plan on passing.

I know Mrs. NFB fears change like the change I'm trying to make in myself. I'm not sure where that fear comes from. It's not like my plans involve ridding myself of us. I just want to rid myself of a few pounds of excess baggage I've been carrying around over the past few years and get my energy levels back up above barely able to keep breathing. We may have to have a talk about it if the tension keeps ramping up. At the end of the day she always seems to feel bad about her negative comments about my eating habits, yet at the same time she makes the same negative comments each day. That makes this path far more difficult that it needs to be because she's still the most important part of my life and I hate being told I'm doing something wrong by her, especially when I know I'm not doing anything wrong.

We'll get through this one way or another I'm sure. It's just weird to see any sort of conflict between us. So weird I've kind of forgotten how to deal with it.

For now, I'll just keep trying to see where she's coming from with her comments, while still trying to show her why I'm doing what I'm doing, and that it's got little to nothing to do with us. I just don't want to feel like crap physically anymore, that's all.

BREAK

Another on the endless stream of disasters that seems to surround AFKS and I anymore. His other buddy, the nutjob religious freak that thinks the dinosaurs were put here as a test by gawd? We'll call him GAG, cause, well, that's what we'll call him.

So, GAG and his wife are pretty destitute as well, but getting by. They've got a decent house, not perfect, but decent. They can afford it. They've got jobs. They're doing OK.

Except, they decide right now is the perfect time to go looking for a new house. That might make sense because of how the housing market is, though Sioux Falls and the surrounding area aren't as get rid of it oriented as some places. Anyway, they decide they want a new house. Reasonable.

They sell their current house first.

Unreasonable. In fact, since they have kids, stupid.

Now, they tried to sell it before Christmas, and failed. So, they unlisted it, saved up money for a down payment on a new house, then used that money to buy a new van. So, back to broke, they list their house again, sell it, except they need to do a whole bunch of fixing up to it before the sale is complete. However, they do have to move out. I'm not sure how they managed to finagle that.

Only THEN do they realize that they don't like ANY house available in the surrounding area. None of them are what they want at all.

So, they go looking for an apartment.

Now, during this time at some point she quit her job and started a new one. AND, right after starting finds out she's pregnant. Which makes the new job question her motives as they have a better maternity leave policy than her previous place. And they already have kids.

So here's the situation. They've sold the house but won't get the money until they finish the fix-up shit they promised to finish. They're broke. They have a new van to finish paying for. She just started a new job she may lose because they're questioning her instant pregnancy. And they have nowhere to live but this new van right at the moment.

And AFKS tells me he wanted to say he could help them, but all he could do is laugh at them for being so stupid.

His exact words after all that, "when people ask me how I know people are stupid, this is the story I'm going to tell them."

Is it just me, or are people our age and just a few years younger completely and utterly fucked in the head? What happens when our generation is the generation that's supposed to be in charge? Are we all just doomed?

Somehow every person I actually know outside of AFKS and myself that's my age or younger is completely unable to function as an adult. It's a frightening trend.

Enough. Laterz.