Why Do Alcoholics and Drug Addicts Always have Snowplows?

I am constantly baffled by the world. I don’t know why I should be though. It is consistently typical. The strange thing is that people always shock me. If I could only wrap my mind around the fact that some people just aren’t all rosy and wonderful, I would be less surprised by them. The trouble is that no matter how many times people have treated me badly or how many people have shown me that some people are just not “good”, I still believe that every single person in the world has beauty in them…Ah…That’s so nice isn’t it? Can you hear the orchestration playing underneath the movie with the happy ending?…the flutes playing a high, danceable melody while the strings pluck in pizzicato unison to the tune of the sunny human race?…THEN THE TRUMPET SOUNDS! (as though it has witnessed a bad spin on a game show) “Wah, wah, wah, w---ahh!” … Is there really another man on my porch in a “Deliverance” pair of farmer jeans, boots and a Carhartt jacket asking me for more money for plowing?…How many of you am I paying for this? Come on people! I’m at the point that I am afraid to come home all year round. In the summer it’s for mowing. In the winter it’s for plowing. Why am I being extorted to this extreme? They may as well get one of the guys who washes the unexpecting people’s windshields as they wait in traffic at the entrance to any of the NYC tunnels, and let him live in my basement. That way when I wake up and he hands me my 2 squares of toilet paper off the roll to me in the morning, I could tip him for such a kind gesture! Forget about the fact that I could get it myself, or that there’s a strange freakin’ man standing in my bathroom!…AAGH!…There I go…I’m getting all ranty again!…I just don’t know what to do to regain control over the way people make me feel when they back me into a corner with all of their “good deeds!”…I’ve given each of the three men thank you cards with money in them telling them that can drive over a few inches of snow and not to worry about it unless I call them. I have told them each in person! At the end of last season, I even threw a temper tantrum and cried when one of them sat on the hood of my car when I pulled into my driveway until I gave him $100 for “back plowing!”…I truly don’t know what else I can do! The only answer seems to be to sell the house and move. But does that seem a bit extreme?…The funny thing is that I would actually do it if I wasn’t pretty sure that wherever I ended up, I would quickly be in a new, similar situation all over again!

AH! There’s the problem. I am constantly taken advantage of and no matter where I go, the common denominator will still be there- ME! Do I really think that these three guys don’t know they are running a $100 a week con on me? If they plow an inch of snow and expect to be paid even though I told them not to bother with it, whose fault is it if I don’t pay them?…Yeah…but how will they afford their alcohol and pain killers?…Is that MY problem though?…Wait a minute…why do I feel like it is?…Again, I reiterate, the problem is mine. For some reason I am guilted by people who want to take the easy route to life while I work hard for the life I have. I always feel as though they wouldn’t treat me that way if they didn’t really need the money. The trouble is that I really need my money because I don’t collect unemployment or disability like they do. As a matter of fact, I work for everything in my life all by myself. Geez…I would even shovel my own driveway if I wasn’t afraid that if I went outside, some helpful neighbor would come out and ask me for money for advice about how to shovel my driveway! This is a lifelong issue of mine and I suppose that there is no easy fix to the problem.

What should I do about the uneasy feeling I get from being taken advantage of? I can either decide to not let it bother me, or I can try to stop it from happening. Something tells me that this is easier said than done though. I have a constant need to put myself last on the scale of worthiness. Interestingly enough, this places me last on the scale of “haveliness!” The best I can do in this area at this moment, is acknowledge all of those people out there who often put everyone else’s needs ahead of their own sanity: The divorced woman on a budget who constantly gives her time away to help others but wonders where her next mortgage payment will come from; The mother of 2 who won’t take child support from her husband or ask him to take care of his children on the weekends he’s supposed to so he can move on with his life, get married and have another whole family while she tends to the one he already started; The man who gives his money to the drug addict to start a business…once…twice…three times…and consistently sees no progress in the addict while he strives to make the best choices for his own life in order to move ahead and achieve his own dreams…The list goes on and on…Starting today, we should try to take a few minutes to do what is good for ourselves so the people who seem to think that we owe them something but don’t know how to use it once we give it to them don’t waste all of our assets! I have a feeling that we’ll be one step closer to achieving all of our life's dreams once we stop wasting so much time trying to help others achieve what we think is best for them. If our resources aren’t unlimited, we really don’t have the funds to pay 3 different people to plow an inch of snow off of our driveways and shouldn’t feel guilty for that fact!