No Good Deed Goes Unpunished

Go here if you want to read Josh's version of how we spent most of our Memorial Day Weekend cleaning his parents' broken down and pathetically filthy house, only to have them freak out and basically accuse us of evil ulterior motives (like wanting to stealing their stuff). And of course, I'm the ultimate villain here (greedy gold-digging Jewess that I always have been), because to blame anything on their son would require more complicated emotions than just scapegoating me.

As much as I can intellectually understand the reasons why they had the reaction(s) they did (Josh's dad's upbringing of scarcity and lack of permanence, Josh's mom's inherent suspicion and her true pessimist's eagerness to jump immediately to believing the worst of any situation/person), I just don't get how they can so fundamentally and willfully misunderstand what we were trying to do. It went kind of like this:

"Hey Mom and Dad, ever since Mom broke her feet it seems like you've been having a hard time keeping the house up, so we thought we'd come over and help clean up some, make it a nicer place for Mom to spend her convalescence in."

(Suspiciously) "Well, okay I guess."

[clean clean clean, sort, box, stack, toss, scrub, vaccuum, sweep, come back again the next day and do some more]

"Augh! You threw away all my stuff! Where's my _______? I guess she wanted it for her own. You've raped us. I've lost everything."

"Uh, you're welcome."

(!)

I mean really, how do you respond to something like this, so clearly irrational, such an immediate escalation of hostilities with no rational basis? I totally feel bad for Josh, because obviously this hits at a lot of his core issues with his parents. And the drama is not over yet. But for God's sake, I fucking spent long sweaty hours of my precious spare time doing disgusting things (scrubbing the toilet, pulling gobs of hair out of the shower drain, moving furniture to vaccuum up what looked like months worth of dirt and random crap, going to the stinky-ass dump, emptying Josh's mom's BEDPAN) and this is the thanks I get, to be insulted and accused of thievery and psychological rape? Get some perspective, people. I truly didn't do all this because I wanted to hurt or violate anyone. I did it because I have a strong feeling that those we love (especially direct family members--though this sub-group clearly makes more sense with my own family of origin) should not have to live in squalor (even if self-induced). And that if we can do anything to help those we love, we should. (Charity begins at home and all that.) Is that so wrong?

Bleah.

(Thanks to Ian for the title of this entry. It totally encapsulates how I feel about it all.)