Archive for the 'Family' Category

The Busy Have No Time for Tears

Published
by
Randi
on August 25, 2007
in Family, Life, People, Rants, Stupidity and Work
. 7 Comments

My father was operated on Friday morning last week and was discharged on Monday. He has a steel rod in the bone of his lower leg and one in his femur; along with three screws and a plate. He was in a lot of pain but that seems to be fading slowly.

It will take six weeks for the femur to heal, apparently, and a little more than a year till my father can walk properly again…

I’ve been doing a lot which has taken up my time; this is probably the only time in over a week that I have been able to sit in front of my computer and write. My time has been consumed by the need of others and not much of it has been towards me.

Since my father was discharged from hospital I have spent my mornings looking after my father and the house… I make my father breakfast, exercise his leg, have my own breakfast, feed the pets, wash the dishes, help my dad settle in the lounge, put up the washing, and make lunch… Numerous things until my younger sisters have arrived home from school. I go to my father’s shop around two o’clock every afternoon and help my mother there.

The customers are demanding, many don’t say “Please” or “Thank you” and the others are just irritating. For example, a drunken guy comes in and asks for a loaf of bread but decides not to buy it and walks away. He returns after several minutes and demands for “Fish” that is a can of pilchards. I ask him if he would like the one in chili sauce or the one in tomato sauce. He looks at me and nods. I ask him again which he would like, and again I get no answer, so I walk to the shelf, point to the cans and ask, “Would you like this chili one or this tomato one?” He still gives me no idea as to what he wants and after several times of asking, he points to the side where the canned pilchards in tomato sauce stood.

So I take one of those cans, put it on the counter in front of the drunken man and ask if he would like anything else. He looks at me and again gives me no clue. I repeat myself to him, “Would you like something more? Would you like anything else?” After a few times he says no, so I tell him that it costs R7 and he gives me a R10 note. Then I obviously gave him R3 change and he walks away and sits at a table.

After several minutes he stands up and shouts about how I didn’t give him “his” loaf of bread. “Excuse me! You said you wanted fish and nothing else and that is what you paid for. You did not ask me for the bread.” He keeps on shouting that he wants his bread, “Fish is R7, you gave me R10 and I gave you R3 change and asked you if you wanted anything else and you said no!” Then my brother-in-law to be went to the man to explain and the drunken asshole pointed in my brother-in-law’s face shouting, “Wena, wena!” Along with some other crap in his language, I thought that the drunk was going to start a fight with my brother-in-law to be.

My mother just picked up a loaf of bread, gave it to the man and told him that it is his and that he must just leave because we were going to close the shop in a few minutes.

Yesterday a guy asks me for a quart of Black Label. He pays for it and then says, “You look nice, baby.” My response was, “Whatever, come to the other counter for your beer!” Today another asks me for the same and when I confirm that it is a Black Label, he gives me a perverted look and nods.

Some come up to the counter and bang on it to get our attention. Some just walk up to the counter and shout out, demanding for something to buy or shout out, “Service”, “Mama” and whatever else.

Most of these men are perverts and I am not judging or jumping to conclusions because I know that they are! I could just walk past and one would say, “Hey, baby”, “Hello mama.”, “Eh, my sweetheart” and other things or they would stare at my ass. I know this because I turn around to look and they are staring.

It disturbs me because they are much older, dirty, rude men that think they own everything.

So Hectic

Published
by
Randi
on August 16, 2007
in Family, Health, Life, Opinions, People, Rants, Stupidity and Work
. 3 Comments

Life is so hectic right now and will be for some time.

I was helping my father yesterday afternoon in the back yard with installing a couple of lights onto the poles that had been erected some time before. He was drilling on the second pole and I was standing with an electric cable extension wheel above my head. Several minutes went by and then during the following three seconds had the ladder tipped to the side, I screamed, shouted at my father to stop drilling as I pushed the ladder back into position. I was crying because I thought he would’ve fallen, I told my father that I said it wasn’t stable enough when he put up the ladder but he insisted that it was “Fine”. He told me not to cry because he hadn’t hurt himself.

He came down from the ladder after he was done drilling to check which wire had the live current. I told him that I was going to go inside to use the bathroom and that I would come back afterwards. I walked into the house and phoned my mother and told her about the scare and that my head was killing me and that I was dizzy… After I briefly spoke with my mother had I gone to the bathroom, made a little pee-pee and then made my way back outside.

I saw that my father was sitting on the edge the one flower bed behind our little waterfall fountain; between the pole and the wall of the flower bed. He was looking down. I went to him and asked him what was wrong… And he just looked at me and said that he had broken his leg. “What?!” I exclaimed. He told me that he had lost his footing on the edging of the taller flower bed, slipped and got hurt.

I ran inside the house crying, “I knew he would get hurt. I quickly come in and out and it happened.” I called my younger sisters to come outside. My father was on and off of his cell phone with my mother debating which hospital my father should go to. After waiting over thirty minutes for an ambulance that was dispatched from an emergency center which is less than eight minutes walk away, had my father been finally taken to hospital.

I had called the emergency center about three times. First time was for an ambulance. Second time was to find out where they were after ten minutes of waiting and being put on hold for two minutes and then being told that they had already left. Third time was after about eight minutes to ask if they were dispatched from the center that is up the road and where they were. I was on hold for almost five minutes while the lady called the ambulance, then I was told that they had gotten lost and “Have been directed the right way”.

The paramedics were stupid. Firstly they didn’t know how to get my father into the ambulance. Secondly they used the ambulance’s blunt nosed school scissor to cut the right leg of my father’s jeans to examine the injury. Thirdly, they didn’t bother to answer my father’s pleas for someone to hold his leg still because the ambulance shook when turning, causing immense pain. All I could do was hold my father’s shoulder as I was too far from his leg to help. And lastly, the paramedic that checked my father’s sugar levels did not use gloves when pricking his finger and getting some blood on the test strip, and on her own finger!

Starring at this I thought, “Oh my fuck, how can she not wear a glove?! Imagine if she was dealing with a patient with HIV/AIDS…” Oh yeah, they didn’t even bother to ask if my father had HIV/AIDS or any other disease that can be passed on by coming in contact with blood. That was fucking stupid in my opinion. They didn’t ask and they should. Anyone and everyone should when dealing with someone who’s bleeding, needs medical attention and whatnot…

So after some more drama at the hospital was my father admitted and is now awaiting surgery. He broke the femur of his right leg and has internal bleeding. They have put a weight mechanism strapped to his ankle to pull the bone in a certain way before he can undergo surgery, that we don’t know when is going to happen. Maybe tomorrow, I hope because my father is in a lot of pain.

Now my mother and I have to tend to the shop because obviously my father is incapable of that right now.

It’s a little past six o’clock in the morning now. I just had a bath and have to go with my mom and be at the shop at seven o’clock. It’s going to be a long, rough day serving rude demanding people… We’ll hopefully close the shop at seven o’clock tonight and come back home after seeing my father. Tomorrow night is another story as it’s Friday and have to close an hour or two later.

I’m really not looking forward to the twelve hours that I’m going to be spending in that shop today…

To Be, Or Not To Be

Published
by
Randi
on August 12, 2007
in Celebrations, Family, Life and Rants
. 5 Comments

My older sister is getting married in December. A while back she had asked my younger sisters and me to be her bridesmaids. This was a bit after we complained about her making her future sister-in-law to be a bridesmaid; along with some of her friends… We felt offended because she hardly spends time with us; she is at her future in-laws’ 99% of the time. Her baby daughter spends more time with us now than she does…

She decided that on Friday afternoon that she would come over with her future mother-in-law to talk about the wedding and show us the dresses that she and her future sister-in-law went out and bought, without us… Oh but she did send an MMS with a photo of her future sister-in-law modeling her dress, with a message, “What do you think about the dress?”

That morning she called to say that she would be coming over that afternoon to show us the dresses. She told me that my mother would have to take one of my younger sister’s dresses along with me to a tailor to make me a dress. “We looked but there wasn’t a dress in your size…” My older sister said. I asked what size was that and she told me. “I’m not even that size. How can you look for my size without even knowing what it is? You didn’t even ask me what size I am.” I replied, and we left it at that.

Only now does she want to involve us. We didn’t have much input though, all that was discussed was what had been chosen and decided, without us of course… Oh and not to forget the budget. Everything had been arranged and set without our input; simply because it was not asked for… So we didn’t bother.

On my niece’s birthday, my older sister was looking through a wedding magazine. She came across a cake, pointed to it and looked to her future mother-in-law and said, “Oh wouldn’t this be nice” (Or something like that). And her future mother-in-law replied with something along the lines of, “Ah, surely you can have that.” This was right in front of our mother.

My mother was hurt. Also because during the opening of my niece’s gifts had my older sister’s future mother-in-law arrived, surprised. Surprised because she, “Didn’t know this was going on, I wasn’t invited”. Now wonder why it was just the few of us from our side of the family that had attended.

Oh and the next day my niece had a birthday party at my older sister’s future in-laws’. Arranged or not? I don’t know but my older sister has said many times that she doesn’t want us to mix… Why not?

Anyway, I told my older sister that I no longer want to be one of her bridesmaids. I told her this while her and my younger sisters were in the passage talking. She said that I shouldn’t be rude; I told her that I wasn’t being rude and that if anyone was being rude, it was her as she is never around and all. I told her that if she wants, I will be at her wedding but I will not be one of her bridesmaids.

I don’t know if I will regret this or not… I really don’t care right now.