Note: I wrote this post yesterday, but couldn’t submit it until today because of reddit being down. There’s only a paragraph or two where I talk about “today,” but in this case it refers to Monday.

So one small thing I think I've mentioned before is that I don't really trust Old Yeller. There are many reasons why.

Because I can't drive yet, the nearest grocery store is a ten-minute walk away. Since I know a grocery run should be two minutes away with a car, most times when I need to shop I just wait for my car-having boyfriend to come over because going alone is not worth the effort. It takes me longer and I am limited by what I can fit into a backpack and carry home.
That being said, I once asked her to pick me up Dr. Pepper from the store and she said she'd do it on her way home from work that Friday. So for the six days before that, I reminded her every day to get it because I wanted to hold her to what she said. Surprise, surprise--Friday rolls around and no soda.
I was fucking pissed, not because I'm so entitled as to throw a tantrum over soda, but because I reminded her for six days to do it and she still didn't. I wasn't sure if she was that forgetful or if she just couldn't be bothered/didn't care.

Now just picture living with somebody who always does this shit.

Another example: our house has no AC in it, so as a result it gets really hot, especially in my room since I live upstairs. Two summers ago she said she'd get us window AC units so it wasn't so unbearable. I waited, and as it started to get hotter, I eventually asked her where they were. She claimed they were on back order and wouldn't be in for two weeks. So I waited two more weeks and when I asked her about it again I think she gave me some bullshit about how there weren't any or we couldn't afford them.

That same summer my 3DS charger broke, so I borrowed hers. When she needed it, she asked for it back. I gave it willingly, and let her know I had been borrowing it because mine was broken. She said she'd order me a new one the next day. Well, the next day I reminded/asked her about it and she bitched that she'd just put her iPad down and didn't want to go get it and bring up amazon again. Boo-fucking-hoo, you have to get up and walk maybe 10 feet to your bedroom to go pick up something. It took a week for me to get a new one and even then, it was my boyfriend who had ordered it for me.

Or how about my favorite proof of her being fucking unreliable--the summer my dad had cancer.

The summer I graduated high school was also the summer she finally got a job. She had to, dad was in no condition to work. I don't know what her problem was, she either had no time or no money, but I really want to believe she was just fucking lazy given what else she's pulled on me since then. But this particular summer, I think, was the start of her terrible track record.

For basically that entire summer, since I was a high school student who still couldn't drive, I was basically housebound. And a house only has so much food in it at any given time, so I would sometimes ask Old Yeller if she could pick me up McDonald's or make me her delicious homemade fries (or shit, even toast since I knew how to make it in theory but was too scared of screwing it up to try).

But basically every single time, her response was "sorry, I've had a long day at work and don't feel like cooking/going to get you anything." Or sometimes, "sorry, I can't afford to go get you McDonald's, walk over and get it yourself."

Instead, she would do her “grocery shopping” at a fucking dollar store (not even to save money—she just hates grocery shopping that much that she can’t even be bothered to go to an actual grocery store) and buy me two boxes of snack foods. One of Cosmic Brownies and one of Fudge Rounds. Fudge Rounds have always been a snack I really liked, so they were the first to disappear. But over that summer I grew to hate Cosmic Brownies.

That summer was how I learned I couldn’t rely on her, because no matter how much I begged, she couldn’t even be bothered to feed me. My only options were to scrounge whatever junk food I could from around the house whenever she finally went “grocery shopping,” or walk to the nearest McDonald’s (which was maybe 15-20 minutes away from where we lived at the time, on foot).

Ever since that summer she’s basically always been like this. I ask her to do something for me, she agrees, and then when the time comes she hasn’t actually done shit. And I keep falling for it. I keep thinking that she’ll eventually pull through for me.

But lately, it’s almost too much and I’m damn near fed the fuck up with it.

See, I’m just now starting the new semester. I had hoped to have my license and a car by this point so I can stop taking the bus (which I’m sick and tired of, the TL;DR is that it’s time-consuming and it takes me three hours to do what takes a car-having person one). I spent half this summer practicing with a friend, but because he wouldn’t let me practice in actual traffic, I eventually took Old Yeller up on her offer to teach me.

This was fine at first, she said we could go out as often as I wanted, or even every day. I had just renewed my permit and there were about three weeks left until school started, so I was hopeful that I’d have it handled by this point. And we did go out pretty frequently…for all of a week. Then suddenly she got busy or I spent a weekend with my boyfriend, something happened to disrupt it, and we didn’t talk about it or go out again for like two weeks.

So then last weekend I asked her if we could go out again, and she agreed. We went driving around in a cemetery that Thursday, and made plans to go again on Sunday.

Sunday afternoon, after I got out of the shower, I told her I could be ready whenever once my hair dried a bit. She kind of looked at me like she didn’t really know what I was talking about, so I followed it up with “…we had plans to drive today?” To which she kind of shrugged and went “sure,” but with this air like she didn’t really want to.

I proceeded to my bedroom to dry my hair and surprise surprise, within five minutes I got a text from her saying “Honey I can’t take you out driving tonight. I’m just not feeling well. I’m sorry. I will take you right after work and every night after work so we can expedite you getting your license.” I agreed, completely unsurprised and internally rolling my eyes pretty hard, but I didn’t want to be an asshole.

So then I wait until today, fully thinking we were going to go out again and I’d get some more practice in. But of course not, because this entire post is about how unreliable Old Yeller is. She cancels on me again and gives me some explanation that the new meds she’s taking are leaving her feeling lethargic, but whether it’s legit or not doesn’t concern me in the moment as I’m too irritated by her canceling on me again to care. But I pretended like I understood and acted like it was fine because she just had to throw some little manipulative bullshit in there by saying “can I postpone driving tonight if I take you out to dinner [tonight? tomorrow? didn’t catch it] and we go driving tomorrow?”

And this isn’t the first time she’s said something like that. Last Thursday when we drove, it was actually a rain check from Wednesday. That afternoon she texted me saying “Are we still on for driving tonight? Would you be upset with me if we did it tomorrow instead of today?”

Well gee mom of course I fucking would because you just cannot be bothered to do anything for me or help me in any way or put in effort for anybody but yourself and your dogs. I haven’t relied on you for shit beyond a roof over my head in three fucking years since that summer you gave me nothing to eat but junk food, and now all I want is to get my license so I can stop getting up at 6 to make it on time for an 8 AM class because of the stupid bus schedule and so I can stop relying on other people for rides and access to food, and you can’t even help me with that. But because you put it this way and ask me these fucking questions, now I can’t say no or I’m the asshole and you’ll get pissy at me.

Yeah, she does take me out driving, but it’s so fucking hit-or-miss with her. And today had me so irritated I was honestly wondering if the constant cancellations were worth the occasional chance to drive.

Boyfriend feels bad that he hasn’t been able to help, but I keep telling him he has nothing to be sorry for because he offered several times to let me drive before winter break last year. I was just too scared to take him up on it because I was afraid to fail in front of him. And now his car is having some small problems that make it a bit more complex to drive, and he doesn’t want me dealing with that as a new driver. So right now no matter how much he may want to, he can’t currently help me.

So without shelling out for more private driving lessons (because I already took a few of those last fall), my only options to drive are my unreliable-as-fuck mother, or my more-reliable friend who won’t let me out of back roads and parking lots because he doesn’t trust me in real traffic.

Argh. My point is that Old Yeller pulls this kind of shit all the time and today has me goddamn near done with it. I almost wanted to find someone else to drive with. But she might actually be my best option for now, so I guess I’ll just have to deal with it and hope getting my license doesn’t take the whole semester.

On one hand I feel like this whole post is me being petty and entitled because I’m not getting what I want, but on the other hand I kind of feel like I know it’s not that I’m not getting what I want—it’s that every single time I ask Old Yeller to do literally anything for me or help me in any way, she says she’ll do it and then either cancels entirely or doesn’t do anything at all and it drives me up the fucking wall. Grr.