cleaning my *own* house.

What do you do when you really, really really want to tell someone that they're full of shit, but, for various reasons, you realize it's not a good idea?

Do you just burn the bridge?
Bite your tongue?
Walk away?

Fume? fret? resent the *hell* out of them for 'getting away with' shit that you'd *never*, in a million years, be allowed to pull?

Ok, it's that *last* statement I'm questioning here.

First of all, who is this magical person who does the 'allowing'?

Your parents haven't been a *real* force in your life for many, many years.

You've learned to call your mother on her shit, often right on the spot (which is pretty fucking amazing, when you get down to it - I don't even want to *think* about the 'pathless track through the wilderness &c' traversed to get to this point.)

***
Your brothers? Total non-contact; bridge out. Big red warning sign reminding you not to drive on that road.

***
Now, I'm thinking that Little Brother and I had kind of a - deal? where I wouldn't be mean to him if he wasn't mean to me.

Which I *thought* was our sort of 'agreed upon' mode, until he made some comment a few years back about having to be 'so careful all the time.'

But then I observed him, and especially his wife, making verbal and emotional mincemeat out of their three small daughters at the dinner table on a regular basis.

And I recoiled - having distanced myself so far from that part of the family dynamic, I couldn't stomach it any more.

And you know what, grasshopper?

You don't *have* to 'stomach' it.

It's BAD for you.

PERIOD.

End of discussion.

If being around your family? means you, and the other people in it? have to put up with THAT LEVEL OF BULLSHIT

at EVERY interaction?

then FUCK it.

It's not worth it.

It's like you used to say: It's like somebody's asking you to eat these cookies, "Oh they're so gooood," they'll say.

And I'll say,
"But what about the arsenic?"

And they'll say, "What arsenic?"

And I'll say, "You know, that little bit of poison you put into each bite, just to keep me on edge."

They: "Oh, that's *nothing* - it won't hurt you, I eat 30 *times* that much arsenic every day and, see, I'm fine!"

Dumbfounded silence on grasshopper's part.

"So, what you're *saying* is, that because it hasn't killed you *yet*, it must be ok???!???" (meantime *thinking*, but not *saying*, "just how fucking stupid *are* you, anyway?")

*shakes head to self.*

***
I *try* not to feel smugly superior here.

But it makes me think of 'the one who got away', and something I read about crabs once (don't know if it's true): If you put a bunch of them in a bucket and one tries to escape?

The others that can't get out will pull the escapee back in to the bucket.

Numb silence.

***
So, once again, second verse same as the first:

Look out for Number One.

***
And: Maybe what you do in this situation is try to be all 'zen' and let the thoughts simply float across your mind like a cloud through the sky, while you're safely buried (like a frog in mud?) down below, far from the action.