I'M NOT TAKING THIS GUILT (Mum issues)

I am just not good at this!!

In my nightly routine phone check-in with my mum (which I am hating more and more each day!), she proceeds to tell me about her day. Apparently her car did not start this morning. So after having many people look at it from her condo (even though she has AAA but refuses to use it unless absolutely necessary. Why bother paying for a service that you will never use..... whatever) she has inexperience people give their ideas to why her car would not start. All along I am thinking it’s her battery, as she has never had it replaced since she bought the car about 4 years ago. (Good battery, I must say) Anyway, she finally broke down and called AAA after three hours. They came and towed her car to her dealer???? They did not even check if it was the battery? I have no idea what transpired there, as apparently everyone and their grandmother was surrounding my mothers car as she got what seemed her whole condo involved in this one little incident with so many opinions flying everywhere, probably the AAA guy had not a clue what to do with her car as he was hearing different stories from everyone, and just took her car?

So, she has no car and is in panic mode now!! So what else is new. She has two doctors appointments this Friday and proceeded to inform me that I would be her chauffeur for the day. Not even considering I work. Meanwhile, people from her office have and continue to offer their services to her in times like these. But she refuses to let them help her. She always has something negative to say about them and they would just aggravate her. (Like I don’t?) So being the loving daughter that I am, (yeah right) I argue with her and say, “why don’t you finally give in and take up one of their offers?” Then the yelling begins..... “What kind of daughter do I have? Oh, now I know how you feel about me.” I try and reiterate, even though I really do not want to take her on Friday, that she should let one of her co-workers take her! I then said, if it came to ‘push comes to shove,’ I would take her and drop her off and then pick her up when she was done and that I was not taking the whole day off. That set her off again. “What you have to work? Why can’t you stay with me.” I repeated again, that I would take her, drop her off, then pick her up. I am not waiting around all day for you while you are taking your tests. You would have done it alone anyway if you had your car.

Okay an hour later she calls me back saying her dealer called and that she can come and pick up her car first thing in the morning as it was just the battery!!! Then I learn from her that she last week went to get new tires put on and was told that her battery was on the way out. But, she refused to believe them. Then I am trying to explain to her that I would be around to pick her up first thing in the morning so I can get to work on time. Work on time? Like that was something foreign. It was like I should rearrange my work hours around her picking up her car. I said, no, “I will be there at such and such hour and drop you off.” Keeping in mind her dealer is about 12 miles each way from where she lives.

So, I will drive her before I go to work. So through all this, heated words were exchanged (nothing new) that could have been avoided. But then again this is the norm. Not saying that the car ride tomorrow to the dealer is not going to produce more discussion....

Now, I guess for the good part, I did not go ballistic or have a rage attack. May of been different if I ended up having to chauffeur her Friday. But, I will take my reaction tonight as a good one. I even said to myself at one point and really believed it that, “I am not taking on this guilt.”