When in doubt, transfer the guilt

Norm added the "I'll do it" at the bottom. She is more proactive than me.

An unfortunate side effect of me moving out is that Norm (real initials: MP,) bears the brunt of the Post-It tirades.

Even more unfortunate is that she got lumped into the "mess" that I created in the living room while packing. Younger Sister wrote, "I know we're leaving/moving during Labor Day," even though the "we" encompasses just me.

If "we" is just "me," then "certain places" means what? The cloud of dirt that follows me around?

Also, in case you got confused, YS did not clean the bedroom. B.R. is her shorthand for bathroom.

Oh, wait, you're still confused?

Sorry, I can't help you with why she usually cleans twice. That part makes sense to no one. 

Shower wars

My gym bag and the shower share custody of the razor.

This is what I keep in the shower at the Asylum. Granted, I only use the shower once a month. But this shelf is all I was given on which to put stuff.

Likelihood the color scheme was on purpose? Low.

This is the matching shelf on the other side of the shower. This is what Younger Sister keeps in the shower. 

Oh, wait...and this:

Three types of loofahs. Do you have any skin left?

And this:

A fourth loofah! Definitely no skin left.

And this: 

Pumice stones too? Is there an exoskeleton hiding somewhere?

I have two personal favorite aspects of the shower situation:

1. That I am repeatedly asked to clean the shower when there's not even any room for me in it. 

2. That YS uses the same shaving cream as Don Draper. 

It's so much easier to yell about someone than at them

Someone's an overachiever. Or the rest of us are slackers. I vote "B."

I've stopped cleaning at the Asylum. Like anything. At all. Sometimes I throw a dish in the dishwasher. Times, that is, like once a week when I use a fork at home. 

I'm only home to sleep or belatedly change out the laundry. I haven't used the guest bathroom in two months. I haven't sat in the living room for longer than five minutes in four months. I use the second floor bathroom (where my stuff is) to brush my teeth in the morning and at night. 

For these reasons, I made the decision not to help clean the rooms I don't use. I've been following this plan since mid-July.

You will notice that my name is still crossed off for all the dates after July. 

Two weeks ago, I was hiding in my room, using the computer before bed when I got a text from Norm.

"They are mad at one of us - do you know what's going on," she wrote. She was sitting downstairs. Older Sister had checked her reflection in the living room mirror and immediately whirled around in a huff to Younger Sister.

"This is ridiculous," Older Sister seethed.

"It's not that big a deal," Younger Sister said in an attempt to calm her down. Instead, Older Sister used this as an opportunity to launch into a tirade. The siblings continued to argue in another language, the one reserved for talks about Norm and I. They speak in code to protect us from fully knowing the extent of their rage. Which is strange, because we always know how angry they are. Instead, we just don't always know why.

Using bits of English and chunks of context clues, it appears that because I did not clean the living room, the mirror reflection was not up to correct household standards when Older Sister took a gaze at herself. 

Set aside the idea that a mirror does not collect much dust in the span of two weeks. Ignore the fact that I left my name uncrossed on the chart so that I was obvious and not misleading in my rebellious ways. Draw your attention instead to the red marker that has retroactively crossed my name off the cleaning duties. 

I have done no more cleaning in the past month and a half than I planned to do. That is to say, I have done nothing. My name, however, seems to have been busy.

Weightlifting gloves trump yoga clothes

Gloves dry better if they are arranged as inverse images. Fact.

Often, when the sisters fight with each other, they will slam the doors of their respective rooms. 

Door slamming is punctuation. It's the exclamation point on an all-caps phrase, sealing it shut with the same high volume that carried the argument across the apartment. 

Today I slammed the door of my room. I hadn't had a fight. I hadn't even exchanged a word with Younger Sister, who was downstairs. My door slam was more of an incredulous question mark on the end of a whispered, italicized phrase. 

As previously documented, I am not awesome at laundering punctually. But I do have several things working against me: 

1. I teach hot yoga.

2. I teach hot yoga more than once a day.

3. I teach hot yoga away from the house between the hours of 8am and 10pm. I am at home when Norm is sleeping in the room adjacent to the laundry. 

These things combine to mean:

1. I have to do laundry at least every 10 days or I will smell like a moldy onion. 

2. Sometimes I put laundry in before I leave in the morning and can't change it out until I return at night. 

3. When I do laundry, I have at least two loads to do at a time. 

So I understand when my stuff is in the way and has to be taken out ahead of time or someone throws a load in while my stuff sits aside. 

What I do not understand is how if I do laundry more than the average person, how is someone else in the house ALWAYS doing laundry at the same time as me? What clothing needs washing so urgently that my clothes are, without fail, bumped out of laundry process?

Answer: Weightlifting gloves. 

Just so we're clear, not one, but two, pairs of lady weightlifting gloves, in addition to three sports bras and a pillow case were enough to warrant hurrying my laundry along. 

Just so we're even clearer, my sports clothing, that I get paid to wear, was taken out of the washer and put into the dryer at the wrong setting with someone else's dryer sheets so that the unemployed sister could wash gloves that serve little purpose for anyone. 

Are you kidding me(insert door slam here)

"On time" and "Two and a half weeks early" are two different things

An all-caps "please" is more demand than plea.

For a few months, we paid the cable bill to Older Sister, and she put the entire tab on her credit card. This was the result of a late fee. We were late one time. Mostly because the system for check-writing is that everyone puts in their own check. The last person puts a stamp on the bill and sends it out.

Seems simple. 

Except when the sisters rush to put their checks in first and I am stuck with the stamp. Every. Single. Time. 

One time I ran out of stamps. I took the envelope and stuck it in my gym bag so that no additional Post-Its would stare me down, insisting I go swiftly in search of postage. And then I totally forgot to send it.

We were late the one time because of me, but our checks "never seem to get there in time for some reason." 

Apparently, even so, we have abandoned the credit card scheme and have returned to checks. The above note appeared August 14. It is urgent, imploring, decisively demanding us to pay by tomorrow. 

Here is the original bill:

That is some hella-expensive 60 Minutes.

Note the bill's due date. Sept. 2 is exactly 18 days after the Post-It begs us to dash to our checkbooks. The only way we'd get a late fee is if Comcast confused our payment with the month before. 

Since I was obviously the last one to write a check, I stashed the envelope inside the book I'm reading until I got my paycheck. I sent it out today.

It will still get to the cable company a week early.

One of these things is not like the other

My soap.

Norm's soap.

The Asylum deal with hand-soap is that when one runs out, you reach under the sink and place a new one out on the counter. Hand-soap is one of the premier items featured on the massive Target receipts that accompany reimbursement requests. Given the immensity of the Target haul, there are upwards of three extra bottles in the house at any given time. Currently, there are two under the sink in the second floor bathroom alone. They are always Softsoap. 

And yet...

Younger sister's soap. 

Fancy soap?! I have no hard evidence to prove that this was included in the receipt for which I paid my share.

I did, however, once try to buy my own soap. I bought one that I liked the smell of. I put it on the sink. I did not ask for reimbursement. (Because, A. It was $1.29, B. It was for my side of the sink and C. Really? This is a thing?)

I was told by Younger Sister to use one of the provided soaps under the sink. And, she continued, if I buy something else, put a Post-It downstairs and ask everyone to contribute.

She ran to her room and grabbed 75 cents. I refused.

But in exchange, I have been solely using the fancy soap for a full week. 

The progression of passive-aggressiveness, Final Arguments

Norm's slash indicates she paid the hush money. As in, hush up. Now. 

To recap: 

Wednesday, Exhibit A appeared.

Saturday, Exhibit B appeared. 

Sunday night, Exhibit C appeared. 

Monday night, this appeared. 

Less than a week, and Younger Sister was in dire straits to recoup money for items no one asked her to buy. 

I walked into the Asylum to find this Post-It on the fridge. Actually, I was waiting in line to get to the fridge because Younger Sister decided to jump in front of me as I stood staring at four notes at once. (More on those later this week.) 

YS threw some food on the counter, slammed some cabinets shut and huffed her way over to the sink, muttering, "It's all yours," to me about the fridge. 

In the human world, this signifies, "anger." In Post-It world, it signifies, "read the Post-It to decipher my anger." No one would have verbalized a word unless I started it. 

Me: "Oh, I'll have money for you tomorrow. I'm sorry - I haven't had cash all week." (Note: This is true. I haven't had any kind of money all week. I don't get paid until Monday.)

YS: "Oh, that's OK, I'm just not working right now, so you know."

First of all, clearly this is not OK. Secondly, no, I don't know how parentally financed unemployment translates to petty compulsion. And finally, by not working right now, she means she hasn't been working for six months since she was fired from a bar. 

I've been let go from a bar before. It's a transient industry and management is fickle. YS said the manager was a jerk and didn't have any grounds. While explaining her own defense, she also let it slip she was fired for telling a customer to "f**k himself." 

Since then she has been turned down for jobs because she wasn't willing to drive outside the city and once for how she dressed to the interview. The phone conversation I overhead (easily, since there was much shouting involved,) last week included this soliloquy:

YS (shouting, naturally): "I refuse to wait tables or serve drinks. I am not going to get a bar job. I'm above that. I'm too educated. I'm intellectually overqualified for that job."

YS just finished graduate school, from which her Masters in Teaching degree is pending because of an argument with a professor. She has taken the Illinois Basics Skills test four times. 

She has failed the Illinois Basic Skills test. Four times. 

In all honesty, I probably would have paid my $8 by Sunday under normal circumstances. But I didn't want to. I'm intellectually overqualified for this Post-It.