Hoppy Little Fluffy Bunny

It was the night (or two) before Christmas, and all through the (town)house, not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse.... except my brother, who is more like a rat.  So I'm sitting in my room catching up on a little bit of saved DVR quality programming and I hear the home phone ringing in the distance.  The phone is in my Dad's bedroom, and somehow he didn't hear it (which I then start to think that he's dead, since it's literally one foot from his head).  I know it's my brother because I have the Vonage modem in my room and I can see who's calling.  Yesterday, we got about 13 calls from him wanting everything under the sun, including a condo in Boca, practically.  After screaming at him and hanging up, that was the last of it, prior to the midnight call.  About 1 a.m., there's a knock on the front door and subsequent doorbell ringing.  So I throw on something presentable, because I didn't know who it might be... and it was him.

My brother is the biggest liar ever, so you never get the full or correct story.  Apparently, as per him, the guy that he was hanging with was doing drugs, and being a person on the straight and narrow, he didn't want to be in that environment. I suspect that it's more because he hasn't had any money to give the guy and he was sick of my brother free-loading (although my brother denied that when I asked him).  He wanted me to take him to the South Side to a shelter, so I got dressed and came back down (leaving him outside, since everything in the house would have been gone, including the paint on the walls.  The car in the driveway that brought him (that he said just picked him up when he saw him walking) was still there, and while I was upstairs, he supposedly said that he would take him down there, so I didn't have to.  And then it came... 'well, maybe you could give the guy a few bucks for gas, since I don't want to put him out'... oh, it's ok that you put my Dad out for upwards of $150,000... and me probably $5,000 over the years... and you wake me up at 1 a.m.... but you don't want to put a stranger out for $2.00 worth of gas.

The only comparison to how my brother 'attacks' our lives is imagining a litter of baby bunnies in a breezy field... sun shining on their  soft, fluffy fur... hopping carelessly... nibbling on fresh clover by a babbling brook... frolicking merrily with their brothers and sisters.... giving each other bunny nose kisses....  and....

SSSSWWWWWWOOOOOOOOOOOPPPPPPPP....

a hawk comes in a plucks one of them up and flies off with it... only to drop it as it wriggles around and it falls on it's head... dazed and confused, it tries to run and smacks into a fence post 43 times before the hawk gains it bearings and swoops in again chopping it's little adorable bunny head off in one beak bite and the other half of it's body plummets to the ground and is gobbled up by a pack of wolves that just happened to be standing there ... well, you get the picture, probably too vividly.

I had a hard time getting back to sleep.  It makes me feel like I am some bad person, especially at this time of year, but it's really important for his own advancement that we not do anything for him because that's less that he'll do for himself, relying on his survival instincts that he's never had to use, except when he needs drugs.  I don't understand the mentality that I or my Dad is expected to solve all his problems.  I'd like for there to be someone that is responsible for my shit when it goes wrong... I can't even imagine that as a possibility.  And the mentality that it's ok to screw over your family at every turn.  Not once in 20 years has my brother done a thing for me that I didn't have to overpay him for.  All the therapy in the world couldn't make me feel anything other than hurt, frustration and anger.  I will never work through that.