Stand Up Straight And Wipe Your Tears Away

[nfotxn]

She lays in bed wearing a floral nightie. The TV strobes over her face and the unpainted wall behind her bed. I can see the tears welling up inside her eyes, a pathetic smile lamely attempts to cover them up. I ask what's wrong.

"I'm not much fun to be around these days, am I?"

It's hard to watch a parent dissected for nearly five years. From financial desperation to health and professional crisis. Dolled out from cold fluorescent lit Byzantine cube farms across the world and a single impish balding bank manager sitting back in his chair, feet up arching his fingers. He tells her that the $500 stolen from her son's account will not be refunded as if he's trying to emulate the stereotype of the cold, heartless and miserly banker.

A long chain of unofficially related events leaves an aging woman sick, broke and nearly homeless. Today we don't abuse people outright. We torture them over long periods of time when they come into poor standing in our society. A highly debatable improvement.

Some say that our success in life is all based in perspective. Keep a positive perspective and you can do anything! I call bullshit when I hear it, and although it may mark me as the nihilist I can sometimes be, you've got to assume nothing in order to understand something. Which I don't think is precisely nihilistic.

The world is one big karmic asshole. And I think, perhaps, there is a deficiency of good going around. When you factor out the bourgeois, maligned, distracted and ignorant the margins for quantifiable "good" are pretty thin. Between the pious headlines and quarter-truth weblogs I subject myself to daily, I wonder if we'll ever stop lying to ourselves and figure it out? Or just wait twiddling our thumbs until it's our time to get screwed too.

Tomorrow I paint her walls.

Comments

[iahklu.livejournal.com]

hugs, yo.

[sinnabor.livejournal.com]

Bah, that sucks. Poor mum.

Take heart

[poodler.livejournal.com]

You set a good example for the rest of the world to follow.

[sonoranbear.livejournal.com]

Was a police report made? I don't know about Ontario but here there are victim compensation funds for victims of crime. Just seems there should be something out there to help balance this out.

You're a good son, Brodie and it's time high time you and your mom came into a sweet streak.

Let it be soon.

[jawnbc]

I know it's frustrating, but if you can keep working up the chain of the bank. They will relent--to the tenacious. If this eejit is at the branch level, get the branch manager. Go in person. Otherwise call the head office in Toronto.

If there's a good credit union nearby, switch after this is over...or better yet start moving stuff there now, like your payroll deposits. They're not exempt from heartlessness, but are definately better than RBC or the other majors.

I don't think keeping a postive perspective with asswipes will help...but keeping focussed because they are, in fact, asswipes, will win the day. Or tomorrow.

And can you encourage Mum to get some support? It sounds like she's overwhelmed. Can you encourage her to either get counselling or engage in some sort of social activity?

[stingray1975.livejournal.com]

I agree on all points with Monsieur jawnbc, especially the part about escalating the bank issue to the head office. For all you know, the idiot to whom you spoke only has an adjustment amount of $300 or $400. Trust me: they will eventually give in as long as you're persistent & document all discussions.

Hullo

[dominicvine.livejournal.com]

Hey Brodie
i fell into your blog a bit tonight
and enjoyed reading through it
however
i tried downloading Freak Folk 3
and the torrent is down

do you have a web page where you put your mixes or musics?
i'd be interested to hear:
i love your selection of "current music"s

anyway
i Friended you
so
hello there

how's the beard doing?

Sucks!

[satarnion.livejournal.com]

After four months of my harassments to T-Mobile, I managed to get a refund on an incorrectly charged fee of 200 dollars. Because of this, I believe, maybe foolishly, that the same is somehow possible for you in this situation. However, to get 500 dollars from a bank where they have at least even the smallest justification to say, "no"--the labour required might be enough to simply give up right now and re-focus your attention on other things.

Welcome to the capitalist jungle; slightly sexier than the one we all came from, but ultimately just as vicious. Thank anything but God for what little socialism actually exists in these places.

I just think the point is to avoid thumb-twiddling. Painting walls sounds like a good start.

Critical Mass (I have no idea what that means)

[thafuzz.livejournal.com]

Clearly defined 'good' expired when romance expired - sometime around World War I.

The illusion of justice had a good run. Now the world is reverting to barbarism. It's frightens me.

I guess as long as the movies, food and sex are enjoyable, there's not much to be done (unless colonizing an extraterrestrial planetoid sounds reasonable.)

*screw hugs, you need a week-long cuddling, legs intertwined, a blanket twisted with bodies in ways previously unseen by nature, sunlight warming through the window*

[bleedsdaylight.livejournal.com]

Thanks for your bleak picture, Brodie... I wish you and your mom weren't in that situation, but your honest sharing of it certainly helps the rest of us reflect on our own lives. You're a gift to the LJ community... and to your mom.

I hope peace is found and justice done. *HUG*

[bitbear.livejournal.com]

It may be of little consolation; but finding your way and making something meaningful for yourself, to avoid a retread of the situation, may be the only positive thing to draw.

You're right, we endure a lifetime of subtle tortures. But there are also thousands of subtle pleasures to be had; hearing a unique chord progression, duck confit, the laughter in a friend's voice, a hard earned orgasm.

It may seem like a cosmic (or karmic) conspiracy, but in the long view, good guys like you win out. Hang in there.

[http://users.livejournal.com/speedy_/]

That really sucks! But the way you used to describe the situation with such poetry and beautiful narrative quality is quite remarkable.

Good thing you are there for her

[abearius.livejournal.com]

Fix your lipstick and move on, honey. Banks are cruel and heartless institutions, but you are Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious!

[alundryn.livejournal.com]

There is deffinitely a lack of good.

I'm listening to a friend going through a similar thing with her grandfather who raised her. He's been in the ICU Cancer ward at Loma Linda hosp. and still they haven't seen one doctor and can't get anyone to tell them how long he has. And now they're telling them that he has to fail at home care before they will let him move to a care center. So he (81) and his wife (80) have to try it on their own until he falls down the stairs or something.

People need to look up from their clipboards and computer screens and realize that real people are behind the medical files, financial reports, and mortgages and start figuring out ways to help people instead of reading down the script of cans and can'ts.

I'm sorry you guys have to go through all this.

I added you to my friends list by the way... hope you don't mind.

[birddog.livejournal.com]

Hugs, BNC.