Misanthrope for the next four weeks, maybe more

I’ve always disliked staying at other people’s houses, even as a child.

This turned into a phobia after a two day visit to a friend of a friend in Sydney. I was supposed to return to Melbourne by train with my friend but ill and in pain I decided to stay overnight without her and fly back.

I was left alone in the flat, nothing in the fridge except a can of pineapple juice which I opened and had a glass before I caught a taxi to the airport. I left a gift for my hostess and a note saying that I had opened the juice.

A week later with no phone call from my friend, strange since we spoke or saw each other just about every day. The friendship apparently was at an end on the advice of her boyfriend. I was not a suitable person for her to be around.

Considering the time I’d known her boyfriend and that I’d been sleeping with his brother, it was an odd time to decide I was unsuitable as a friend.

I met her for the last time to hand over photographs of the Sydney trip and to ask the big question, why no more friendship.

The flat we stayed in belonged to his mother, a born again Christian of the rabid Catholic kind. According to her, I had stolen food, imposed on them by overstaying 12 hours, left without saying goodbye and thank you. Above all, I was the worst kind of female, in her opinion I was well on the way to becoming a (gasp) lesbian. That gob smacked me and I can only think it was because I had walked into the bathroom in my petticoat to hand a towell to my friend. These were the days of bra, girdle, stockings, full length petticoat, you know, ‘move along, nothing to see here’.

The last was also hurtful because the son sharing my bed did not tell his mother that she was mistaken probably to assure her that he was still her virgin child. Over 40 years ago and that betrayal still sends hate arrows if I hear a certain song.

I had known the friend and boyfriend for some years, neither had defended me. Friendship severed.

A fleeting phone call some years later brought home the fact that when people say you can’t go back, it’s really true. Another reason I would never follow facebook.

As far as I was concerned I had done everything that etiquette demanded of a guest but a phobia was born and I still dislike staying with other people in their home.

The point of all this is that I have someone not staying but visiting at the oddest times and seems to have no idea of what one does in someone else’s home.

I would not dream of asking to borrow cosmetics.

I would not have a shower in another’s bathroom.

I would not be cooking in another’s kitchen at 11 at night.

I would not invite my parents over when the owner of the home is in her grotty old dressing gown after a day at the oldies party and not tell her they were coming until they were on the doorstep.

I would not tie the owner’s lace curtain in a knot so one could lie on the bed to watch the birds.

And so on.

I apologized to my mother yesterday. She was crazy, bitchy and thoroughly horrible before she went to the home but she had two years of the ill-mannered troll that I am now wanting to choke after 3 weeks.

I should have let mum do away with her and pleaded justifiable homicide due to insanity.

I have not said anything to the BrickOutHouse, he knows. He has offered to go away as soon as he can sit to drive the car, bad idea and one I was trying to avoid by not saying anything.

You see, I have been in this position before with my son and his girlfriend. She won the battle and he left at 17. These two women are of a kind. They saw the man they wanted, they got the man they wanted and they will lie, cheat, connive and kill to keep the man they wanted. The only difference between them is that one was aggressive-aggressive and one is passive-aggressive. But the one I’m dealing with now could give A-A a 10 length start and still beat her in the bitch stakes and I never thought I’d be saying that.

Tension if you're reading this....PISS OFF