27/05/2002 - 6:35 p.m.

Your daddy don't rock and roll.

I'm not pissed off because he was right. I'm not pissed off because he was justified. I'm pissed off because I was the one to get the unjust blame.

We have a very new computer, well, OK, not really, but, it's about seventeen years younger than me, so- new in longevity, but not in technolgy. This is where the problem comes in. Microsoft (whom I am beginning to hate) will not come up with a programme worth buying. I love their windows, think they're ever so much more fabulous than Machintosh (who are user friendly unless you actually want to do anything with your computer), but, this love does not apply to Microsoft ME or Microsoft XP. Our brand new computer was set to run on Microsoft ME, which sucks. It leaks memory and is an all 'round pain. So, we decided to upgrade to Microsoft XP, which won't run on our computer. It's a Catch-22 Situation and my dad exchanged raised voices with several technicians about this very problem (my dad on the phone, gotta love it).

So, this morning he goes into what we call 'round here, "one of his damn moods". It will be completely unprovoked (except in his twisted mind) but suddenly something has gone terribly not according to his plans ans we must all suffer. This morning he comes up with some damn CD that's gone missing that he needs to fix all the problems that someone creates by playing on the Internet at all hours of the day and night (looking pointedly at me). Now, this is true, I'm sure I do cause a lot of problems because I'm on here so much, but if I were shown what I was doing wrong maybe I could fix it. As it is, he just tells me to restart the computer when I'm done with it. The catch: every time I've ever remembered to re-set it, he complains about something I've done wrong.

After stating his problem, he says that someone must have lost this CD because he certainly never uses the drives for anything other than this particular CD. Looks pointedly at me because once or twice I play the LOTR soundtrack. Doesn't look at little brother who plays Myst and his bowling game and War Craft and War Craft II and Diablo and everything else, no, looks at me. Well, I know one or two things- I know that I never play CDs in any drive other than the re-writable, and if he was stupid enough to put his CD in the re-writable drive, well... So, I question him, no, he wouldn't have put it in the re-writable drive, was he stupid? Well, no, but that's the only drive I use. Talk to little brother, I say.

At this point, he gets pissed. No one is allowed to use the computer until someone finds aforesaid CD. Now, I have a whole seven days left in this house. In that time I have to tie up things here and with my e-mail, and now I've got this damn edict.

I come back here where the computer is and start looking. It's not in any of the CD drives, it's not in any of the other CD cases. I go look in my room, it's not in any of my CD cases. I ask him how long he's noticed this has been missing. "Oh, a long time." But he couldn't think of it until this morning. (He's an asshole on purpose, nobody try to tell me otherwise.)

I go back and start cleaning up this room, looking under the piles of newspapers that my father keeps back here. He's the only one who reads them. I look at the comics, horoscope and television schedule- all in the same section of the newspaper. Meanwhile, little brother is playing video games and not getting yelled at. I start throwing the newspapers in the recycling bin. I am not finding anything but one or two pieces of my own correspondance and his damned newspapers.

Needless to say, the room is sufficiently clean at this point.

At this point in the proceedings, I was starting to get mad. Little brother has done nothing at all, and its pissing me off greatly. I ask him to help me look and he says no. I admit, an argument ensues and my mother gets ticked off.

"Will you just look in the drawer of the desk in the living room? You know he puts crap in there. No one else would put it in there, no, they'd put it in by the computer, but he puts his crap in the desk drawer."

"No one's been in the desk since we started installing XP at Christmas," I say.

"That's my point. He probably put it in there and has lost it and decided to blame it on you so he wouldn't have to find it." (This is classic my father, by the way, it's not anything out of the ordinary. Anse in As I Lay Dying sometimes looks like a divine being in comparison.)

We look in the drawer, yup, there it sits. I question him.

"Well, I wanted you to get all your crap out of the back room."

All my crap??? OK, yeah, I did have stuff back there, and he had told me to take care of it, but in comparison to all of his newspapers I drug out of there, mine was a tiny drop in the ocean. My brother's English books took up more space.

So I was getting blamed for losing something that he knew the precise whereabouts of as subtle revenge to make me get a couple pieces of paper out of the room. The getting blamed part ticks me off the most. I don't care that he decided to ask me to get my stuff out, I was going to do it anyway, but to do it in such a shit-headed manner. I hate that. How dare he? I can't believe I live with such an ass sometimes.

I can't wait to get the hell out of here and never come back. Six more days.

Oh, yeah. Happy Memorial Day? And Happy Birthday Chirstopher Lee!