Cleanliness Is Next to Godliness...

And sadly, I've been feeling less than divine.

Due to some rather blargh and yech circumstances, I'm back in Canada and living with family members.  I'm looking into getting a job and all that, but in the meantime I'm living with my dear old Dad and "that woman."

I refer to my paternal grandmother when I speak about "that woman."

I realize it might make me seem heartless and ungrateful to be calling her that, but keep in mind that saying, "You get to choose your friends, you don't get to choose your family."  While my parents were still married, my mother couldn't stand it when my grandmother would come to visit.

In all seriousness, my grandmother is the type of mother-in-law people have nightmares about.  Yes, she's that fucking horrible.

Even her grandchildren can't deal with her.  She criticizes everything, makes embarrassing comments in public and she's never happy with anything.  I'm planning on going to university in the fall and when she heard about this (OldSis told her on the phone), she told my sister that they all need to discourage me from going.  Her reasons were many.  One of them is because none of my other sisters have ever graduated from university so, obviously, I won't either.  She thinks education is a waste of money.  She thinks I'm too old to go to school.  She thinks I should settle for any job I can get and not waste time dreaming about a career by educating myself.  She doesn't think I can do this...

Needless to say, OldSis told her off rather savagely about that.  Not that it changed anything, that woman's a stubborn old thing.

Anyhow, one other issue I'm struggling with while I live here is personal hygiene.

I long to spend more personal time with this thing...

According to my grandmother, showering every day is not a good thing.  By all accounts, I should only be showering once a week.  I'm rather ashamed that my personal hygiene has to take this kind of decline and I really don't know why I'm admitting it on here, but there have been some humorous incidents happening because of this change in my cleaning habits.

Last Saturday, I stepped out of the bathroom after my shower and she called me over.  I kinda tilted my head and approached  her.  I wish I'd pretended I hadn't heard her because I got a serious tongue-lashing over the fact I'd taken a shower two days in a row and I had moved the towels.  I went back to my room with a stunned expression and a sinking feeling of humiliation in the pit of my stomach.

The problem here, however, is that...I hadn't taken a shower two days in a row.  I have no idea what she was thinking but I've been following her rules.  Kinda.  I cheat sometimes, Dad tells me to take showers when she's out of the house and such and that's worked a few times.

So my mind was rather boggled, as I'm sure you can imagine.  I told Dad about it and he advised me to just let it all go through one ear and out the other.  I'm rather stressed and not a bit freaked out by several changes in my life, but I tried to take his advice.

However, now I'm really wondering if that woman's losing her mind.

I went out for a drive with my Dad today.  It's a lovely day out and he wanted to go see a local waterfall and take pictures, so I tagged along.  On the drive there, he sent me a look and I thought, "Uh-oh..."

"[That woman] came up to me this morning," he said.  "And she told me, 'She thinks I don't know! She thinks I can't tell that she's been showering every day since she got here, but I see it! She moves the towels and when she steps out of the bathroom, her hair is wet!'"

After I heard that, I exclaimed a rather high-pitched, "WHAT?!"

Behold, the instruments of the devil in my household!

I was shocked.  Dad said he thinks she's starting to lose it and  I'm not surprised.  She's up before I am, she sits in the living room which is not far off from the bathroom so she could hear the shower running or hear me going in and out of the bathroom in the morning.  I have no idea what this towel business is all about.  I use my own towels, I don't touch the ones hanging in the bathroom, but she could easily see for herself that the shower hasn't been run.

In a way, it kinda helps knowing she's going senile, strangely enough.  That might not be a very nice thing to say, but at least I know she's yelling at me for things she's making up on her own and not because I'm actually doing something wrong.  I'm also very much aware that she likes to talk crap when she thinks I can't hear her (especially in the mornings).  But this...

Well...

It's kinda fucking funny, to be honest.

Mua ha haaa!