I’ve mentioned before that we live in a basement apartment with a shared washer/dryer. I’ve also mentioned that the Cranstons have a 19-year old daughter named Becca. This weekend she was a story unto herself.
This was laundry weekend in the Truman house basement, except that when we got started on Saturday afternoon, there were some clothes in the washer. This was odd because though I remember Becca doing some clothes a few days back, I hadn’t heard her come down over the weekend.
Turns out that it was the same clothes, only now with stench added.
I don’t mind putting the Cranstons’ clothes aside to do my own and don’t mind when they do the same for me. I don’t even mind taking out and folding clothes if I need to vacate the dryer. But I was a bit resentful of having to put our clothes on hold to rewash hers and dry hers simply so that our apartment doesn’t smell. The clothes that we needed to clean became a second priority. I was not inclined to do any folding.
Flash forward to about 3am on Saturday night slash Sunday morning. I am awoken to the sound of a dialing phone. I look over and see Clancy dialing upstairs. Clancy asks them to please keep it down.
Keep what down?, I thought. then I heard it. I don’t know what that noise was, but it was more significant than when the Cranston grandkids are running amock in the house (a considerably noise itself).
Some boy answered the phone. We’re pretty sure that the Cranstons were out of town and that Becca was throwing a little party or something. Even so, who in the world answers a phone that isn’t theres at three in the morning? Kinda odd.
The noise did not lessen and Clancy got a rather poor night’s sleep. One of my t-shirts was oddly cleaned with Becca’s clothes (a t-shirt I hadn’t seen in a while, but one I can’t imagine Becca wearing)., which are cluttering up the laundry table untaken upstairs.
So I’m a bit annoyed with Becca at the moment.
On one hand, I understand where she’s coming from. When my parents were gone (particularly in the college years), there was always something going on at my folks house. Usually not a party, but I did have (a) girlfriend(s) over from time to time or sometimes my friends and I would watch movies late into the night. In any case, we only had to worry about the neighbors and not anyone downstairs. It’s gotta be a drag to live with your parents and not even have the place to yourself when they’re out of town.
This isn’t the first time that Becca has had… guests… over while the parents were away. In the past we’ve felt it our business not to say anything in respect to Becca’s privacy. But respect works two ways and we didn’t get very much of it this weekend.
The other factor to consider the Cranstons are good LDS folk, this stuff could be quite harmful to her relationship with her parents and we’d rather not get involved in that.
Not sure what’s going to happen. Probably nothing. I’m very good at ‘nothing.’
Ahh well, it could be worse. She could be a prostitute.
A short update on the “working girl” situation ’round these parts… lately (knock wood) it’s been rather quiet. I suspect my last call to the management office finally filtered down to Mom O’Tart and Little Tart was sent to stay with Daddums for a bit, which has happened before.
It never works, though. After a few days of Daddums spoiling her even more rotten, she comes back more… well, rotten than ever.
Never occured to me until now, but this might explain why both Mom and Lil Tart have truly excellent, upper-end cars, when Mom only works part-time.
I’m so in the wrong biz.
Comment by LeeAnn — April 25, 2005 @ 6:12 pm
I think you should confront Becca directly about it and tell her that if she doesn’t respect your proximity, with the noise and smell, then you will have to talk to her parents. She is an adult and should hopefully be able to respond as one. If not, then I’d go to Mom/Dad.
Comment by Becky — April 25, 2005 @ 6:23 pm
It seems like, with all the lip service LDS members pay to their “family morality” they would be able to keep closer tabs on their daughter while they’re away. Since it seems whatever moral instruction they or their church tried to give her during her formative years didn’t seem to take…
Do you get the idea that in most cases, LDS members actually do “walk to walk” when it comes to morality, or does it seem to follow that good ‘ole Southern Baptist, “Do as ah say, not as ah do” mentality?
Comment by Barry — April 26, 2005 @ 8:47 am
If you accept their moral premises, I’d say on the whole that they actually do pretty well. Not as well as they might have us all believe, but their premarital sex rates are lower, drug use is lower, and so on. So it’s a half-full, half-empty kind of thing.
At least out here, however, there is a tremendous rebellious streak in the young. I’m not sure how much of it is LDS and how much of it sheer suburban boredom, but among the (non-LDS) young men I’ve talked to, there are a lot of girls that really want to “sully” themselves “to get back at Daddy.”
Then again, in Tangramayne teenage sex was pretty common. Though the rationale was the opposite (acceptance rather than rebellion).
As for the Cranstons, Becca is different. Part of it is last-child-syndrome where she was given a lot more lattitude than her siblings (just as I got more lattitude than my older brothers and Clancy got less than her younger sisters, except that there are four involved instead of three) and wandered away from the campfire. Her sisters are all married and poised to have litters of their own, which is what they were raised to do.
Comment by trumwill — April 26, 2005 @ 9:08 am
[…]
Jesus, Amplified
Filed under: Work — trumwill @ 11:03 am
Barry’s comments about southern Baptist hypocrisy reminds me an interesting story about the University […]
Pingback by Hit Coffee » Jesus, Amplified — April 26, 2005 @ 11:03 am
[…] r: Work — trumwill @ 12:59 pm
Apparently Becca told her folks about the whole 2am party and told them that she felt bad about it. We’re not sure whether or not it was simply pre- […]
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