Class Act

Dear Indigna,

I have a serious beef with my so-called “best friend.”

It all started when my teenage niece came to live with us so she could finish high school in our top-rated district. We started having problems immediately. For example, she had this long hair, and I kept finding strands of it in the house. She had the brass balls to protest when I made her shave her head! As if that weren’t bad enough, she would not take out the garbage when I told her to! Sure, she’d take it out some time within 24 hours, but I’m sorry, that’s just not good enough. Plus, she was to clean her bathroom daily. Well, do you think she abided by my wishes? No, she did not! Sometimes Miss Priss would go 12-24 hours without sterilizing the place! And don’t get me started about her failure to follow the procedure I instructed her in. She totally “forgot” to use the toothbrush on the toilet nine times out of ten. We had a schedule posted in the kitchen showing exactly which of her 37 chores she was to perform at a specific time each day, so her failure to comply was clearly deliberate defiance.

Then we started having problems with her ingratitude. Sometimes I’d catch her talking to her mother on the phone! Well, who was paying for her phone bills? If she wanted to talk on the phone she should have called me. And then, for a writing assignment, she wrote a paper about how much she loved her mom! The paper didn’t even mention me or my husband! Well, if her mom was so great, how come she couldn't afford to live in a gated community and send her own kid to a decent school, like us? And then, sometimes when we wanted her to babysit at the last minute, which was the least she could do for us considering what we were doing for her, she would say she “had to work.” Work! For someone else! Just because they paid her! Did she give us that money? Not one dime! She spent it all on luxuries like a car, underwear, and getting that cavity filled.

Well, it should be no wonder that we kicked her out. Sure, it was only three weeks before high school graduation, but you make your bed and you lie in it. I thought I’d break it to her gently by carefully packing all her most precious possessions in black plastic trash bags and tossing them onto the lawn for her to find when she arrived home from her volunteer graveyard shift reading to terminally ill insomniac children at the hospital. Did she appreciate this? No, she did not! Instead, she left the house (well, I’d also changed the locks that day so technically she didn’t come inside) and called my “best friend,” who, without consulting me, came and picked her up, no questions asked, off the street, where my niece knows she’s not allowed to loiter at 3 a.m., outside the strangers’ house she had called from when she knows she’s not supposed to talk to strangers! I call that disloyal, but it gets worse.

The next day while my niece was at school my “friend” came over to “make nice” and “talk this out” and tell me how “valuable” my friendship was to her, and offer to let my niece stay at her house until graduation! As if I weren’t good enough to take care of my own niece! And when I asked her, if my niece were to stay with her, to report back to me on all the normal stuff, child’s phone calls, text messages, IM’s, emails, when she left the house, where she went, who she was with, when she returned, niece’s instances of defiance, what exact chores she accomplished vs. what she was assigned, details of how said chores were executed, etc. (I went to the trouble of having a form drawn up) my “friend” refused!

Well, that was just the end. I immediately canceled my niece’s insurance, placed an ad for the sale of her car (which I had locked in my garage while she was at school), submitted a bill for unpaid items (portion of utilities bills, fines for failure to execute chores in the prescribed manner, etc.) to my “friend,” and informed said “friend” that my family was to have no further contact whatsoever with either her or that hell-sent demon spawn of Satan and the Anti-
Christ (by gay adoption) she had taken into her home. Can you believe that my “friend” objected when I told her about the car? Who cares if the kid paid for it with her own money? I paid for her food, lodging, and the occasional pair of socks for two years!

My question is, what cause of action can I bring against that bitch (my “friend”)? I’ve spent fourteen years of sleepless nights gnashing my teeth over this and plotting revenge. I think I’m entitled to at least several million dollars.

Still Hating Her With the Intensity of a Thousand White-Hot Suns
Viper, KY

Dear Hating,

I am shocked and appalled at this behavior! Not only do you have a case, but I think you should file a class-action lawsuit as I am sure that everyone who so much as reads your harrowing tale of abuse will suffer untold (and compensable) pain, suffering, emotional distress, loss of consortium, economic loss, permanent injury, and disability. As have I--count me in! (Oooooh, and let’s not forget punitive damages! Ka-ching!)