Wilde Wisdom

Oscar Wilde said, "One can always be kind to people whom one cares nothing about."

Usually I agree with the smart-arse things that Oscar Wilde is recorded as saying, but after the events of last night, I can't say I agree with this one.

There is a woman who has recently come to live in our house. She's the girlfriend of the man who lives in our basement. Word on the street is that before she came to live with us, she was a nice sober Catholic girl who still lived with her parents into her forties. All I know of her is that she seems to be a very small, constantly drunk woman. Her and her boyfriend always...and I mean always...come home drunk. I'm usually trying to watch a little TV after work on the couch, which has the ill-fortune of being right by the front door. They seriously cannot take the most blatant hint, because no matter how much I turn up the volume or try not to listen to them, they will continue to talk to me about inane things, breath through their mouths on me, and generally act like idiots.

So last night, the woman corners me while I'm loading dishes into the dishwasher and she starts talking to me about how afraid she is of me. "I'm really, really shy," she insists. I realize that's probably why she only talks to me, in very large quantities, while she's drunk. Unfortunately for her, the main reason I would NOT want to talk to her is that she always tries to have conversations while she's drunk!! We are at an impasse. So here's this forty-something woman trying to ask me to teach her to knit so that we can watch movies and knit together.

I'm thinking, The last thing I need is to befriend another one of these psychos that live in the basement. They always turn out to be insane, and then they move out six months later or something. I don't want to knit and watch movies with you. I can barely stand the sight of you. I want to slap you whenever you come near me and slur your words and cry at me. I feel guilty because I don't really think this is the ideal Christian response to this situation. Even last night, while she was drunkenly trying to discuss which church she should start attending, it was all I could do not to scream.

Last night kind of devolved from there, ending in her screaming at her boyfriend in the basement at 12:30am, and my Dad coming out of his room to tell them to Shut...the f@&*... up! Oh, it was gloriously reminiscent of my childhood. Could we please have adventures like this every night?! (She said, every word dripping with sarcasm...)

Is it unChristian of me to launch a campaign to get them out of our house? I feel I will soon be driven mad.

Take THAT Oscar Wilde.