D-DAY

Tuesday was “D” day, the day of reckoning. It had to come. I dreaded the day, but planned and thought and prayed about how I would address the issue. I had confront Marias accusation of me when she was the one who blew it.

What she did is nothing new. It’s just that it happened to me this time. Her niece says she has never accepted responsibility for her own actions and that she always finds someone else to blame. I had noticed that with others, but had managed to avoid being the target until a week ago today. Many of us already know she is always right — on everything. She cannot accept another opinion as she has the only opinion that matters. If she cannot win an argument she swears and turns to personal accusation and name-calling. When someone is mad at her she has no idea why or what their problem could possibly be.

I have watched her lose two of her closest friends over silly issues. She argues that she did nothing wrong. They were at fault. She had bent over backwards to be their friend. That’s not quite true. If they apologize and made overtures to her, she might restore the friendship. But things are over if they expect her to acknowledge responsibility.

Maria has helped me get bread on Wednesdays for almost a year. She was not at our meeting place on time last Wednesday. I mistakenly assumed she was sick or may have slept in. She has not been well. As soon as I walked in the door last week she went after me with both barrels blasting away. She used her excessively loud barrels that can be heard in the next county. There were a dozen or more people in the room. All but my helper and I had heard it all before. So had a number of the organizations administrators, as they were just finishing up a meeting when she arrived complaining about my thoughtlessness. Apparently, without any prior discussion or request, I was to know I should call her or come and knocking at her door. I guess I was to usse my x-ray vision to ss what she was doing. Unfortunately, my eyes are getting worse and that part of seeing is fading. My explanation was not acceptable. She was not sick or tired. She was sitting in her apartment reading a book. READING A BOOK! That’s my fault?

Consider for a moment how unimportant our little bread pick up is in the big scheme of things. It is a nice service. Managers had always provided the service. I volunteered to take it over after a couple of months without anyone doing it when we lost our manager last year. Usually one person can do the job. I had another helper so could have done it without her.

What I did was extremely offensive. As she reminded me, she wanted to buy some bread there. I had prevented that. WHAT? When I realized no one was going to win, I left and waited for a time alone when I was not so volatile. That was yesterday. She opened the door. We often go to movies on Tuesdays. That was the plan for that afternoon. She asked if I was going, I told her no. I no longer wanted to be with her and Kiki at the same time because of the abusive way she treats Kiki. It was long way around, but another issue for me.

Kiki is a mild and meek Japanese lady who is abused by her sister, was abused by her husband, abused by her daughter and now by Maria. Kiki cannot or will not stand up for herself. It seems like her life has been one big abuse and she sees herself as deserving the treatment she gets. I don’t, and neither do others.

That lead to telling her how hurt I was being accused of something I did not do and that I wanted a couple of weeks of space. As expected, she denied having said anything to anyone or having attacked me. I explained that I was barely in the door before she was giving me hell. Naturally, she did not do that. I told her I had received an email from the main office wondering what I had done that made her so angry. She was not angry, and stunned that I got an email.

I let it go at that. My perception was one of accusation and I wanted a proper response. I’m sorry. For what? I don’t know, I didn’t do anything. That’s the problem. You never do anything. Let me know when you know what happened. Silence prevailed.

I am now waiting to see if she talks to me again. We have had two encounters. The first was at a table around coffee. She left when I arrived. The second was in passing and she grunted when I said hi.

I know I am expecting a lot from one who has been like this for 70 years. In two weeks, I will begin the process of rebuilding our now destroyed friendship. I expect it to be hard, but I will see if she can accept any responsibility. I doubt it, but will let it go. I wanted her to be aware there was a problem; I do not want a permanent rift. That will be noticeable and demand explanation. I do admit I am interested in how she will handle the explanation. I expect to be even more at fault about the awful way I treated her. I’m not sure she will be believed this time.