*Whew*

[silverthorne]

FINALLY!!!

The woman went home yesterday. It only took her a week of sitting on one end of the couch, eating nothing but coke and poptarts except for when we fed her real food for dinner, occasionally reading a book, watching TV and looking bored out of her skull even when we were talking to her and trying to get her to talk back. we let her have the run of the house, first choice at all the entertainment, etc...

The last two days she would disappear into her room at intervals and hide for a few hours. There's really no other way to describe it. She would just up and leave, and that would be it until she wandered back out.

Fortunately, mate and I had a chance to talk yesterday while she slept (We've had a hard time stealing time for ourselves, because even though we were both irritated as hell, we were both trying to be good hosts to our guest--which means being out and available for said guest). It was nice to find out we were both thinking about the same thing about all of this.

It was irritating as hell to find out that our guest was not imparting any information to either of us--alone or together--that would indicate something was wrong other than she was bored.

I could tell the woman was suffering from depression--she was acting very similar to the way I do when it's really bad. Unfortunately, she either doesn't recognize it in herself or does not want to, so even approaching her and going 'Hey I noticed you're feeling this way, do you want to talk?' was out of the question...best I could do was try and draw her out by just talking and being friendly.

It was like trying to pull a recalcitrant mule over a running stream.

Anyway, so mate and I talked it out, the fact that she's not talking, only about whining that she'd bored and the fact that we still had absolutely no clue as to when she planned to go home.

We decided that it was time to get sneaky...

So, when she woke up, we were in the process of getting ready to do chores--Mate out to edge the lawn, me to clean the mice.

She disappeared for that, right back into her room even though I did my best to keep her in friendly conversation while I worked. Either she doesn't like mice, doesn't like chores...or was pissed because we weren't sitting down with her. Maybe all three. What I do know is that she came back out when the chores were done, sat on the couch for about five minutes while we got ready to make lunch and then disappeared outside to sit on the steps.

And sulk. Bowed head, heavy sighs, and everything. Anyone who has had kids or immature friends has seen this maneuver (I've done it in my 20's when I was depressed and clueless). It's the 'poor me' sit. As in 'Poor me, I'm all alone and I wish someone would come talk to me, but I'm too miserable to go find someone to talk to by myself'. Mind you, I'm not making fun--I used to do it all the time when I was younger until I figured out that that tactic not only does not work, but makes you look a bit foolish and immature and only feeds into the whole mess.

This woman is in her 50's....shouldn't she know better by now?

*sigh*

So mate, who is really her close friend (I ended up being friend by proxy), goes out to talk to her while I finish getting lunch ready. Maybe now, we think, she's ready to tell us what's really going on.

They were out there for 40 minutes...

They came in, friend was all smiles, mate was trying to smile, and other then 'cool, lunch is ready', all I really get out of it all is that she has to go home after lunch.

Because suddenly she has doctors appointments Monday and Tuesday.

Say what? When did this happen?

Anyway...so we eat, she packs, we take her home. I wait until we're on the way back to our house and ask mate:

'So, she was afraid about the doctor's appointments? Is that it?'--I'm still looking for a reason not to be pissed as hell at this woman.

The answer to that was 'No, she just suddenly told me about them.'

Basically, it still came down to the woman was bored. And once we started taking care of business instead of hanging out with her (sorry, I don't know about you, but if we leave household chores alone for more than a week, it gets real ugly real fast)...

and here she is hinting she might want to come back in a month or so.

Mate and I have already agreed there are going to be some definite rules about *that*, including a time-limit and we just might make her pay for some of the food. But we will certainly be telling her when she can come so that we're at least ready for her next time and don't end up with half the house in my room and 200 dollars in the hole.

That was the other thing that got me...we spent all that money, and the woman (who does not have to work, has all the play money she wants, and whose husband makes 3 times the amount of money that our jobs combined make) has the...thoughtless gall when we drop her off to give us a five dollar bill for the cokes she drank.

I can't tell you how that made me feel--it's about indescribable...

Anyhow, she's gone now, we're sort of back to normal, except for being a lot worse off financially than we were...and hey, at least we have enough protein in the house to last us for a few months.

I'll just end this by saying..."I don't get this, and I don't get her..."