Witness to a Trainwreck

5/26/06

The one reason I stopped reading Russell Banks novels is that I found them absolutely horrifying. His characters seem to make stupid assumptions and then make dumb decisions that lead to horrible outcomes. That is too much like real life for me--thanks, but I'll stick with horror novels where people die agonizing deaths but everything works out for the best in the end. Well, except for the people who died.

In any case, one of my coworkers seems to have walked straight out of a Banks novel and it's beginning to be unbearable. She's a recovering addict on methadone and seems to embody every fucking sterotype of an addict imaginable. She's hit up everyone in the office for money and not just a dollar or two--it's more like $20 a pop. She's even begged for money from our Federal Express guy. She was finally told to stop after the PA complained to his boss about it. And, of course, she NEVER pays you back. She's paid me back once or twice, usually after we've had a spat about something as some weird passive-aggressive move to make me feel bad. I know, I'm a dumbass for continuing to give her money. And I'm a dumbass for listening to her stories.

Oh god. Her stories. I am now sort of speechless when she tells me stuff because if half of these things every happened to me I WOULD NOT TELL ANYONE. EVER. I would be too ashamed and embarrassed (example: She was arrested for shoplifting a chicken a few months back. Why would you voluntarily tell people you work with about that? Why? And how do you shoplift an entire chicken? Perhaps a Powerbar might've been easier). But she seems to thrive on people feeling sorry for her (well, I suppose that's how she gets money out of people), which is something I really don't understand. Because we all now just think she's crazy. And pathetic.

She IM'ed me yesterday with yet another sad story clearly hoping I would offer her the $20 so she could go get her methadone. We got paid on TUESDAY, how the hell had she run through her money so fast? Well, she has all her stuff in storage (her violent alcoholic boyfriend got them evicted from her apartment; she was  living with her sister until her sister's crackhead ex-husband moved back in and threw her out; she and her boyfriend are now living in their car) and she was behind on paying the storage so she had to give them a buttload of money so they wouldn't auction off her stuff. I expressed my sympathy but didn't offer her any money. I'm done with that. I take care of myself and my cats and I'm also stashing some money for college away for my nieces and nephew. But the bank of Deirdre is now officially closed.

I think she was also counting on someone at the office offering her a place to stay after her sister threw her out. And I think she really expected me to be that person. Oh HELL NO. I try to keep my life as drama-free as possible and there is no way I'm inviting that sort of chaos into my house. I was talking to the PA about it (who told me he was a little worried that I would cave and let her stay with me) and he said "Yeah, can you imagine coming home from work and the boyfriend would be sitting on your couch, watching your tv, swigging back your beer. And then you know stuff would start disappearing. They'd be like 'Oh, the DVD player wasn't working right so we took it to get fixed.' And then you'd never see it again."*

But the thing that has made me the angriest about her is that she didn't get her cat spayed and then deliberately let her outside when she was in heat because, you know, there aren't enough cats in the world. The cat gave birth to five kittens, which she then DECIDED TO KEEP. Arrrgh. Because being homeless and having SIX cats is such a fine idea. I have been begging her to take them to a shelter and she has given away two (because they've been driving around with the cats in the car that they're living in and people at gas stations come up and ask if they can adopt one) and one escaped. But she still has three. In the car. If I see that fucking car on Tuesday parked outside of campus, i think an anonymous call to animal control might just be happening.

*The PA is completely unsympathetic to her plight and shortly after he started working at the Press he yelled at her and told her to stay away from him. He now sends me email periodically with subject lines like "Junkie Update" and "Warning: Junkie on the Move."