Today. I get a text message from the 15 year old.  Can I work for some money? Umm, well sure.  How much will you pay me?  How much do you want? $100.

Lol.  This kid's version of working is to walk around in circles for 2 hours claiming he doesn't have this or that and can't do anything and then go up and watch tv or play the guitar and then come back down saying he's working - which he is not - and he wants a hundred bucks from me.

He steals money from his mom's purse to boot. Like the 20 he took 2 days ago.  Whatever the case, I replied no. 90? No.  Later - 10.  Okay.  I'll give you 20 if you do everything - large amount of work actually.  But he's done much of nothing around there for quite a while, if he actually wants me to give him money, he's going to have to work for it, not just screw off.

"I'll have it all done by the time you get here".  Ummm, that's a lot of work!  He hadn't even STARTED working by the time I got there, he was walking around acting like it but doing nothing.  I found him upstairs watching tv in mom's room after he claimed he had started.

No, he didn't get any money.

16 year old.  Has done very little around there for going on 2 months now.  It's to the point that I am starting to do his work because it needs to be done.  Gaping hole in fence.  I asked him to go look at it yesterday.  We were in the woods pickup up stick and such to make a pile for winter. Strike that: I was picking up sticks, he was sitting on one of the four wheelers texting his gf.  He rides off, comes back and says yup, it needs to be fixed. Just blankly staring at me stating it, knowing full well it's his responsibility.  I said nothing to him.

I came over today and set about doing it myself.  He "intervened".  Well nobody told me to do it!  Stupid answer.  Just pure BS and he knew it.  No, I'm going to do it I replied, you don't want to do anything around here, I'm going to do your stuff. And, I didn't tell him, I'm going to suggest to her that she take his phone and truck privilege away from him and oh well.

Next I am going to do the bush hogging.  He claims no one can drive that tractor. BS again.  I have operated cranes, forklifts, backhoes, trackhoes and graders, I can certainly operate a simple tractor.  But that wasn't his point I found out.  He is the "only" one that can use it.  Who cares, too bad, so sad.  You'll destroy the brush hogger. I hope not, I reply, but I am going to do it anyway.  Two children - 15 and 16 - totally abusing their mom.  Verbal abuse of a kind that is beyond any scope of sanity.  Especially Josiah.

House a disaster today. After Josiah just got the stuff and walking down there - who knows what kind of job he did, half assed I'm sure because he allegedly fixed that same fence a few months ago - I went in and worked with Nathan to clean the kitchen.  He wasn't mouthing off but he wasn't happy either.  But then again, who can be happy in a house where a 15 and a 16 year old are unloading shit?

Andrew - the 11 year old - the only one that really kept his attitude good.  After he had done a lot of stuff, I gave him 4 bucks and said this is for keeping a good attitude.

Whatever. A day in the life and times of.

ben

Today's musings.
Went to a job site.  Drove the semi onto the site as I have done before.  The top of the ground was dry, everything underneath it?  Mud.  Realized it too late and was stuck in clay.  I get the construction company to bring a dozer over and hook a strap up to it - no chains in the truck (retarded, what construction truck doesn't have chains?) and the strap broke.  Another man drove up in a pickup truck, got out, started cussing heavily.  Came up and started cussing at me.  I told you not to drive in here!  Blah blah blah lots of foul language.  I'm just looking at him biting my tongue.  I admit I have ulterior motives in not telling him to go shove it up his @$$, he has the equipment to get me out of there, otherwise we are going to have to call a wrecker to come and drag it out of there at big bucks.

The man says he doesn't have a chain, but then says he does have one - at the other end of the jobsite but refused to go get it - not that I asked, i was ready to knock his teeth out for the way he was addressing me and took everything in me not to do that. I usually do not take such s*** from people at jobsites.  I will get in the truck and drive off - which I couldn't do! lol.  Told me I would have to get someone to come out and bring a chain.  I just looked at him. Probably was glaring, actually.  He took off, I made the phone call. Send someone out with a chain, this guy has one but won't bring it.  Set off a firestorm I found out later, I am not the first person he has cussed out, in fact, he cussed out the manager last week.  Salesman said screw the idiot, he can go to our competitor.

Regardless, I got out of the truck after that and started digging out in front of the tires. Not the first time I got a truck stuck and undoubtedly not the last, not with the places we go to. I saw that I could get the thing unstuck and went at it post haste.  Digging like crazy, get all the mud out of the front of all of the tires on the tractor and the trailer and I should be able to get the thing moving again. That guy can go - jump in a lake putting it very mildly.

Next thing I know, I hear a truck pull up and a voice saying something.  That dude, undoubtedly,  on the other side of my truck, I completely ignored him. Just kept digging.  He came around to my side of the truck but I had already moved to the other side, I am NOT going to tolerate his SHIT, if he was to mouth off to me again, I would have let him have it, nose to nose, right in his face.  Instead, he had brought a chain and was going to pull it out!  What the freak.  Seriously, if you had heard the way he was cussing at me and yelling, you would have had the same reaction. I NEVER spoke an ill word to the man.

He pulled it out, I drove to another place where they wanted to unload, got that done, the guy came back and profusely apologized to me. Okay! Thank you for pulling the truck out!

Moving on.  Over at m'lady's house today.   I have a new weapon, lol.  The kids and the 4 wheelers.  Yup.  Clean your rooms, keep them clean, get up in time for school, don't give lip service no attitude, etc etc etc.  Okay, it's not a weapon, just a useful tool.  It's working at least for now.  Until they get bored with them.  If they ever do, who knows.

And now?  Too late for me.  Time for bed.

ben