Saturday Smack Down!

Wow. What a day.

It started off great. Totally awesome. Faithful readers will know that we had to make a trek out to the 'burbs to take DeeDee to a birthday party. Fun - three trips out there in three days - more than 600 kms on our leased car. Dag. Shoulda bought. Anyway...

We had no real breakfast food in the house to speak of, so decided to start our trek out west and have breakie at a greasy spoon next to Hubs' work. We arrive at the Route 401 Diner around noon, and settle in to a delightful meal. The ladies that run the joint smile and wave at Hubs as he comes in, calling him by name. Hmmm...methinks he spends a good deal of time here! Great food, very friendly people (they even brought us over a waffle, fruit and ice cream combo on the house after the meal - thanks ladies, just what I need!! but it was sooo good)...all in all a great way to start the day.

Then it was off to Zellers at the ghetto mall (shudder - how many times must I be subjected to this horror?) to purchase the birthday present for the party she was off to. $40 and a florescent-lighting headache later, we dropped her off at the party and went to our next scheduled event of the day.

Fortunately for me, that was hooking up with the wonderful and fabulous WB'er baronessk. You see, in thinking about what to do when in the burbs this aft I had a stroke of brilliance. Baronessk and I had always talked about having a coffee when I was out there picking up/dropping off DeeDee and to date, timing hadn't really worked out in our favour. But here was this fantastic opportunity - so I hurriedly sent her a message and much to my delight, she was free!

Shortly after two she joined Hubs and I at Starbucks (another good thing that happened that day - latte) and for the first 20 minutes, the poor gal was regaled with tales of video games (her fiance plays too) and snakes. Wow. I'm sure that's exactly what she'd had in mind when meeting a girlfriend for coffee. Hehe. Hubs decided it was time to go off in search of manly like things and we were left alone to chat in true diva fashion.

And chat we did! She's a great listener...she had to be, 'cause all I did was talk! Talked her poor ear off. Are the dear things blistered, baronessk? They must be after an hour or more with me today! Yeesh. She got to hear all about Sludge's latest designs on how to make her world a better place, etc. Another verbal avalanche, and she happened to be right in its path.

Fortunately, at least I hope, she's escaped relatively unscathed and isn't cowering at the sound of another human female voice. If our roles had been reversed, I can't say that I wouldn't be rocking myself back and forth in a now-lukewarm bath, but hey - that's just the great person she is.

The onslaught of converstion was mercifully (for baronessk, I'm sure) ended when Hubs and DeeDee arrived back at Buckies to pick me up. We bid each other a fond farewell, and I really hope it won't be long before we can do it again. Next time, I promise to attempt to try to not talk so much about me and my assorted life shit. :)

From there, it was shopping time. As there is a Benix in this vast outdoor array of box stores (god loves suburbia) and another of my WB compatriots had kindly mentioned the availability of the hot stone cooking set for a fantastically low, low, diva approved price of $17.99, we made a beeline over there, and I was successful in my pursuit. One of those babies came home with me and I was delighted with my purchase. So delighted, in fact, that I didn't want the poor thing to feel lonely in its bag, so we bought a lovely chip and dip set to keep it company. Who wants to come over to our new house for raw meat and chips? Yummy!!

After our shopping expedition came to a close, I was starving. And for some reason, all I desired was Lonestar. MMMMMMMMMMMexican. And when I desire, I must have.

So we went.

To the one in Richmond Hill. OMG... Hubs didn't want to go to the downtown one because you have to pay for parking, so we spent at least the equivalent in gas going from one end of the GTA to the other for fajitas. At least they were freaking good. And fast. And...well, that's about it. Good and fast - when you're that hungry, what more do you want in a meal?

**observation - why is it that when you leave Lonestar, you freakin stink? I can barely stand the smell of myself right now. Fajitas scent barbs are permanently stuck in my clothing and the bad news is the smell kinda borders on b.o. Not cool. And it's everywhere - right down to the unmentionables. Everything in the wash just to rid me of this vile smell! Good thing the food is worth it**

After dinner we picked up a few groceries and finally, FINALLY, were on our way home. 8:30 by the time we walk in the door. Yeesh.

And here's where the bottom drops out and the Saturday Smack Down really begins. Are you sitting comfortably? Okay, we'll begin.

To set the stage: in November or December (the date, while not important at all, completely escapes me), Hubs talked to me and told me that DeeDee really wanted tickets to the Pussycat Dolls/Christina Aguelieraieragiera (who honestly knows how to spell her name anyway?) concert for Christmas. Okay. So we look online -they'd just gone on sale and were going quickly - if we were going to get some, we'd need to act fast.

At that very moment in time, I was the only one capable of securing those tickets. I asked if he was going to take her to the concert and his reply, and I quote, "hell no. That shit is crap. I have no desire to set foot anywhere near them." Message received. So I said, "well, if I put the tickets on my credit card and pay for them, then I'm going to be the one to take her. I have absolutely no problem paying for DeeDee, but with everything else going on, I categorically refuse to pay for Sludge." May sound harsh, mean...bah, whatever. I don't care. I didn't then, and I don't now. I ended up opening my home to this woman for Christmas eve and morning so she could be with her child, for pete's sake - but I refused to stand there and pay for her to be entertained. Not gonna happen.

I clicked 'purchase', paid for the tickets, and that was that.

Fast forward to Christmas morning. The tickts haven't arrived by mail, so I design fake tickets on the computer so Hubs can put it in a card for her to open on Christmas morning. She opens, and freaks out. She's so excited. Thanks daddy - yay!!!! Everyone smiles, all happy, she loves it, and can't wait to go.

Then Sludge pipes up. "Guess who's going with you? Me!!" Uh, whut?

Hubs and I look at each other and he doesn't have to worry, I'm not going to say anything about it, it's neither the time nor the place, we'll deal with it later.

And we're back to the present. DeeDee asks Hubs in the car yesterday if the tickets have arrived yet and he says yes, they came last week. She says cool, and that mom said if they were in, he should send them home with her so they'll have them.

Right.

So tonight, Hubs gets on the phone to have what we KNOW will be a difficult phone call. He tells her that I was the one that bought the tickets and that she had never talked to him about her being the one to go with DeeDee. And so, I was going to be the one who would take her to the concert. If she wanted to buy the tickets from me, I'd be happy to turn them over to her. But I was going to stand my ground on this.

She freaked out. We knew she would. To some extent, I see where she's coming from. She wanted to be the one that took her to the concert, etc. But what really pissed me off was her complete sense of entitlement, thinking that she was just supposed to be the one who would go and the universe was going to hand her the tickets, that Hubs should just shell out $150 and hand them over because she was the mother. Drives me crazy!!

Hubs, obviously growing increasingly flustered as he's being yelled at, says, 'diva bought the tickets so they're hers - do you want to talk to her?' Of course she says yes. Gee, thanks.

Hubs looks at me, thrusts the phone in my direction, and I look at him with dagger eyes. This is the last thing I want to be doing right now. But there was no way around it, so I reach for the phone and prepare myself for the onslaught.

Saturday Smack Down! She goes off, saying that she never would have asked him to buy the tickets if she knew it would be me getting them, that she wants to be the one to go with her, that I/we always throw the fact that we have money and she doesn't in her face...

I kinda lost it a bit at that point. But you see, my most leathal weapon is my way with words. I can lose it and stay completely calm and rational - but I will slice you to ribbons with my words if I so desire.

For once, I stood up for myself. Finally, this was a battle that I could fight, because it truly involved me. I didn't back down, and I forced her to retract a statement or two, but I stood my ground and told her that I was not going to be paying for her to go. She didn't like that much.

I was fuming inside - my heart was pounding and at one point I actually sucked up all of the saliva in my mouth (TMI?), I almost had to gum my words to get them to come out.

I handed the phone back to Hubs - I'd said what I needed to say. She's now said that if she doesn't go, DeeDee doesn't either. Nice. Way to sabotage your daughter's happiness because you're selfish. I KNOW you want to be there and I KNOW you're her mother and I TRY to put myself in your shoes before I do or say things - but for the love of god it's a concert, not her wedding day!

So instead, her solution was that Hubs take the cost of the ticket off his next support payment and hand them over. Diva says WHUT???? Uh, no. I don't think so. He's not going to take $150 in food and clothes out of her mouth and off her back just so her mother can take her to a freakin concert. GET REAL! She complains about having no money, not being able to do things for DeeDee, and she actually has the balls to suggest this? Right out of the what-were-they-thinking column. Christ on crackers.

Verbal vomit. Thank every diety above for blogs. I swear, this is the longest entry yet, and if you're still reading, you're either a glutton for punishment or your cable's out and you can't figure out what to do with yourself. I'm almost done, but why not pause here and pour yourself a glass of wine? You MUST be thirsty by now.

Okay. You back? All better? Good.

Blech. To sum up a very long story, she's pissed. Still pissed. But she's so afraid of people thinking badly of her and/or hating her, that 20 mintues later she called back to apologize to me. That's right. I'll give her props for that, I really will. Can't be easy, but she did it. A half an hour later, we finally hung up, and I felt great - I got to say, but this time in a nice and controlled way, all the things I wanted to say about this situation. Did I get my point across? Who knows. Will DeeDee get to go to the concert? Who knows.

What I DO know is that there's no way I'm bending here. Yes, I want DeeDee to go - it would really suck if she didn't get to, especially since she was so charged about it on Christmas morning. That's why I bought the fu(king tickets in the first place!

But I will tell you this - on Sunday, March 25th, my butt will be in one of the two molded plastic Air Canada Centre seats I've purchased for this crazy concert. Only time will tell if DeeDee is beside me or my good buddy CJ gets to come along for the ride. No matter what, this diva will be in the hizzouse, and Sludge won't. And thus I am the victor in this installment of the Saturday Smack Down.

And that's your daily dash. How's your diva doin'?