You have some relative peace to look forward to, Betsy! SS will do a lot of the things that bothered you still. He’ll waste money, act stupidly, drink too much, spend hours on the phone. But he won’t be doing them under your roof. Your little ones won’t have to see it happening. You won’t have to (try) to discipline him, or ask DH to discipline him – and feel so angry when your DH doesn’t (or can’t) discipline him. You will have better control over your money. Your food bill will drop! You will continue to miss him. Always. No matter what a little sh*t he could be, you still loved him. My SS came nearly every day/night for the first month he was away. Just to say hello, “pick up some more stuff”, get some advice. I’m sure he realized for the first time how much I used to do for him. All of a sudden, he had to prepare meals, cook meals, wash dishes, put dishes away.

He had to iron clothes, wash clothes, hang them out, get them in, fold them up, put them away. He had to work out how much money was left in this week’s housekeeping, and whether or not he could afford to get all of the groceries he wanted, or whether a few things would have to wait until next payday. If he was a slob, then he had to dust, spray’s, mop, clean, wash or vacuum. He has to change his own sheets, towels, washers, bathmats. This is the same kid that used to sometimes ask: “So what did you get up to today, Yvette” after I asked about his day. “Housework!” “Oh, not much then..” The penny has well and truly dropped now. I notice when I invite him for tea, his eyes light up at the thought of a home-cooked meal that he doesn’t have to prepare himself. When he visits, I have a surge of genuine pleasure at seeing him run through me (when he used to get home late at night, I used to hunch my shoulders and tense myself for whatever he was going to do/say next).

My little ones run to him and cuddle their brother around the legs – they love to see him again too. And SS nearly always spends at least a small amount of time “wrestling” with my 3yo, or talking pop music or coloring in with my 4yo. My DH and I talk much more often now, because neither of us is afraid to approach the other in case the other let fly with the latest that SS did (Mind you, history is repeating itself for us, with my second SS who is 17yo, 18 in October. But we are older and wiser this time around…) We are enjoying spending more time on each of the other 3 children, especially the two younger joint children. Part of me is sad that SS had to cross that adult/child line, and that he had to leave home. But another (larger) part of me is SO relieved that he doesn’t live here anymore – especially when his angry GF tells me about the mess he left in the bathroom, or how he was sick after a drinking night out… I don’t miss any of that at all… At least, these are the things I can share with you since my eldest SS left home. I am feeling for you, Betsy, but trust me – you will feel better soon…in a most wonderful way.

My wife and I are moving in a few days. We’re using this opportunity to try to get rid of things that we have but don’t need. Please help us find a good home for them! If you’re interested in any of these, please give us a call at 608-231-1858 (before Wednesday!). Thanks! — Mark * Kenmore washer and [gas] dryer. These came with the house we bought in Madison. (We didn’t need them because we already had our own.) We estimate they’re perhaps 10 years old. According to the house’s former owner, they’re good, solid appliances. We’re offering them for next to nothing: $25 apiece. (You’ll need to pick them up, on the near west side.)

Office chairs. Two comfortable, professional-quality office chairs, in great shape, with pneumatic height-adjustment and all sorts of other controls. Both are of course on casters for easy moving about. One has a short back and a footrest (designed for those who sit upright); the other has a longer back to give you neck support when you lean back. These each ran over $200 new; I’m asking $40 each. * Kitchen or porch table. This is a round, white, roughly 2.5-foot-diameter Formica-ques table, with a gracefully curving base. It’s very sturdy. We’ve used it in an eat-in kitchen as well as in a back patio, and it does perfectly in both places. $25. * Metal file cabinets. Two basic black metal file cabinets; each has two drawers. They can deal with hanging folders, or they make good storage bins. Take them off our hands for $5 apiece.

Curtains. A good number (I’ve lost track of exactly how many) royal-blue curtains with a lighter-blue lining, with brass-colored curtain rings. When closed, they’re great at damping out light (I bought them when I lived in an apartment with a streetlight right outside the window). When open, they add a nice accent to a room. $10 takes the whole set. * 17″ RGB MONITOR. It’s made by Apple, from 1996 or thereabouts. It has its quirks — the power button sticks, and the color balance doesn’t always behave — but what a price:. * Lots of empty cd jewels cases.

I’ve moved my CD collection to plastic sleeves (takes up much less space); as a result, I’ve got lots and lots of surplus jewel cases. Some of them are brand-new, some have seen some use, but they’re all in perfect working order. 5 cents apiece, or if you’d like to buy in bulk (there are A LOT of these), make me an offer. * Krups vegetable steamer. A wedding gift we’ve used only once, and has been collecting dust in our kitchen ever since. We prefer steaming via stove top, but if you feel differently, take this off our hands!

The cats watched things with fierce concentration: the stair carpet, holes in the floor, cupboard doors. Every so often Speedy would rush past them at a rate of several hundred million furlongs/fortnight, and they would jump in the air with shock, try to work out where he’d gone for a couple of seconds, and then wash themselves in the nonchalant way of a cat who is not about to admit she’s been fooled again. Once they nearly cornered him in the sitting-room. He was behind a book-case, and they were at either side — a position not dissimilar to the Stair Event, but without the obvious escape-route downwards.

Never underestimate a mouse: he proceeded to run _up_ the wall, and vanished into the top of the curtains, under the pelmet, before we had decided that we could believe our eyes. Max fetched the feather-duster and poked at the top of the curtain thoughtfully; Speedy rushed out, ran along the picture-rail like a runaway Red Alligator and then dived into the gap between gramophone-cupboard and wall, ten feet below him and about half-an-inch wide. After that we were all so impressed that we didn’t feel inclined to question his right to live in the house. Martin took to leaving biscuits in the hall beside the hole into which Speedy had first vanished; a saucer of water was left under a cupboard in the kitchen.

We put food we didn’t want him to get at into tins, and left him to get on with it. The cats sulked horribly. The dogs looked benignly amused. Being Large dogs (a Gordon Setter and a Dalmatian) they also looked down their noses. Speedy was beneath them, they implied. This state of affairs continued for perhaps a fortnight, and then my Aunt Nancy came to tea bringing her seamless, yapping pest of a Shellie with her. She and Shelley (for such was the bitch’s name) came into the hall; Shelley uttered a fusillade of Peary and dived into the kitchen, where she burst into one of the cupboards, which had been being closely observed by the cats for the previous two hours and more; the cats scattered before her in disarray; she pounced, and emerged with the corpse of Our Little Rodent House guest in her jaws.