"You're not that important"

Ugh.  Taxing day.  I went to bed with a bad headache and it morphed into a migraine.  I still had to get up and work. 

Ron was in a difficult mood today, being obnoxious on the way to work and then ugly to me while I was at work.  A good example, he said "Thank you" to me for helping him with something.  30 seconds later he's calling me a "bitch" and accusing me of "sabotage" because he didn't like the way I locked the vending machine.  He went on about how I do it "on purpose, to annoy him".  No, I just shut the machine.  I don't notice if the notches are up or down, because it is easy to open regardless.  He accused me of making another "mistake, on purpose, to upset him".  I finally told him "You're not that important". 

That took him aback.  That is about the most provoking thing you can say to a narcissist, that they aren't important.  He left me alone for a while after that. 

I was still battling a horrible headache.  I have thought, in the past, if I "help" Ron more at work he will be nicer to me.  He won't be as verbally abusive, kinder, and more understanding.  So today I made a big point of running around at his beck and call.  I helped him with anything he needed.  He would say thank you and then go right back to being verbally abusive.  "He's like a tapeworm" I thought.  "The more I give him, the more he takes, and he just hurts me."

I continued to do what I could, and got most of my work done in spite of being Ron's lackey, most of the day.  A lot of his work involves manual effort, I tried to help him with that (for his back, and knee), but I didn't help him with the stuff he could clearly do on his own.  It was time consuming and ate up a lot of time I could have been doing MY work. 

I won't do that, next time.  If you want me to run around helping you every second, I will tell him, you need to factor in an extra couple of hours.  I need some time to do my work before I can help you with yours.  I tell him this, normally, and he carries on like if I really cared about him I would find a way to make it work regardless.  I always tell him, if you want me to help you, give me more time.  "But I don't want to stay that long".  Well, now I know.  If he's going to be verbally abusive to me either way, I will have a much easier time saying "No" to him.  "No, you didn't give me enough time to help you today" should be a good answer.  Or "I can help you, but it means I won't be able to do ___"

Finally finished and came home.  My head was still bothering me and I had a fierce thirst.  I drank some water and lay down for a while. 

Ron wanted to go to Denny's later.  I set my alarm so I could get up and do my God Time, but I was so tired, had Torbie in my bed, and finally getting over the headache.  I got up pretty late. 

I was glad I already had some candy bagged up.  We went to the restaurant. 

I had been thinking about the apple dessert all day, and they were out of ice cream.  If I had a car, I would have walked out.  As it is, I settled for something else. 

A man came in, a white guy, with a backpack.  He was on a cell phone trying to find out about his background check.  He became very angry and smashed the phone with his fist.  Ron asked what was going on, I told him.  "What?" Ron asked loudly "He didn't pay his bill?"  Ha ha ha. 

The guy looked furious.  I told Ron to shut up, already.  Ron asked me why.  I told him I would tell him later.  This guy looked about one "offense" away from a couple of felony assaults, if not murder.  He really seemed to be a ticking time bomb.  I was tempted to offer him my medication. 

He finally left, muttering.  Then I told Ron the guy was "A lit fuse, waiting to go off".  Ron wanted to make more comments but I told him the guy had left. 

Ron, unfortunately, finds it "fun" to "poke" at people with mental illness.  I remember one time there was a man on the bus, schizophrenic.  He was freaking out about "radio waves" from Ron's handheld ham radio.  He asked Ron to turn it off, and Ron said no, and turned up the volume.  The guy began freaking out, moaning and screaming.  Ron "wasn't going to let anyone tell him what to do"., and kept talking to me.  I could hear the guy in the background.  The bus driver finally told Ron he would put Ron off the bus, if he didn't run off the radio.  So Ron did it.  

When he got home, Ron thought it was funny.  I didn't.  The rest of the meal was uneventful. 

We had an interesting ride home.  The driver pulled up in a minivan cab (pretty common) and opened the back so she could put Ron's wheelchair in the wheelchair loading area.  So far, so good.  There was a blind lady we know, a special ed teacher, in the front seat.  She was very tired. 

I got Ron loaded with no problem, but the driver couldn't get the back door to shut.  It wouldn't latch.  Well, crap.  I had visions of waiting hours for a maintenance tech to come out and fix it.  But there was a mechanic's shop nearby.  She drove over there, with the backdoor wide open (Ron's wheelchair was locked down), and asked for help. He was happy to help, and got it fixed in a jiffy.  She was finally able to shut the door and have it latch. 

We dropped the other client off, and then Ron made the mistake of bringing up politics.  Ron is conservative.  So am I, even more conservative.  The drivers, with very few exceptions, are all liberals. 

After several pointless arguments in the vehicle, one of which brought me to tears (the guy was such an unsympathetic, selfish, jerk - who was later fired), I told Ron "No politics in the van".  I kept trying to remind him of that but he kept challenging the driver, she kept defending her flag, Ron kept denigrating it, she would respond.  I finally got them to stop by saying "I'm stuck in the middle here, and I don't like it".  Ron was just looking for a fight, which would have been fine if he had been alone.  But he's not, and say you "win" by getting the driver upset.  Wow, now they're not going to be driving very well because they're upset, and a lot more likely to get into an accident because you got them upset.  Ugh. 

He apologized when he got home, but he's done this before.  It's very upsetting.  He gets so into "the fight" that he can't see me begging him to stop.   And it doesn't accomplish anything, it just gets everyone upset and angry.  You don't want that in a moving vehicle.  You want calm and serenity.  People who are angry will drive more aggressively, and have a far greater risk of getting into an accident. 

I like my body the way it is: working.  If I broke my leg because Ron got a driver upset talking politics, I'd be furious. 

We finally got home.  She parked at the bottom of the driveway, instead of pulling in.  Ron made a rude comment about that.  "Oh, she told me not to pull into the driveway, last time" looking at me.  "No, I NEVER said that".  "Oh, I must have mixed you up with someone else". 

Yeah, either that or you're getting him back for the political stuff.  I pushed Ron up the driveway (it is pretty steep) and got him into the house. 

Oh, remember the other day, when we offered to buy our driver something off the menu at Denny's, and she ordered the most expensive thing on the menu?  Her husband picked us up to go to Denny's today.  He kept saying "I know who your favorite driver is".  We were baffled.  He said her name, and I said "Oh, yeah, the steak.  She ordered the most expensive thing on the menu".  Yes, he said, and she only did it because she is our favorite driver.  I did not say it to him, but she is not.  She is what I would consider an average driver, and she is certainly not our favorite after costing us $13 for her steak and two sides.  We often offer to buy the driver some food (well, Ron does).  We don't just do it for one, "favorite", driver, we do it for many, "OK" drivers.  I didn't say any of this to him, I just let him think she was "our favorite", even though I would put Gladys up there for the position, instead. 

Ron is listening to the news, it is pretty eventful in the middle east right now.  I am so sick of people putting the muslims as victims there.  They are not.  Their religion is awful.  They butcher their little girls.  The women are in bondage.  They are only good at distorting media coverage and making themselves look like victims.  Look at Israel, they have stated they (muslims) will not be happy until every Jew is dead.  You cannot negotiate and compromise with someone like that.  They want to exterminate the Jews.  The Jews are simply defending themselves, but the media tries to distort it and make the Jews look like the bad guys.  You can agree or not as you like, but that's my opinion. 

I am just smart enough to keep it off the van.