Frozen Hell

      Today was the open house event, and oh my God was it a disaster. Of course I got zero sleep; at around 4-ish I finally gave up and watched a movie with only five hours to go before my alarm clock would go off...then crawled into bed and actually managed to fall asleep for half an hour. Naturally, as I always do, I woke up long before my alarm clock went, and haven't been back to sleep since.
      After doing some housework the family and I trekked off through a windy rain to go sit at Mom's boyfriend's house. It was ice cold. I washed my hands with straight hot water and froze my hands in the process. The bar soap doesn't lather at all, so I had to use a mix of (cold) water and hand sanitizer. I couldn't even eat the spaghetti, which felt like I was chewing on wood; we heard a gunshot; and the news repeated itself a billion times before Mom broke the "rule" of not touching the remote control. When Boy-friend arrives, he ruffles my hair - and grabs my shoulders and tries to pull me against the back of the chair. (He's lucky I didn't saw off his fingers.) Then he takes Mom off to get sauced, leaving my brother and me in that desolation for another two hours of hell. We suffered through Counting Cars and two hours of American Pickers. My sweater, jacket, and a blanket were not enough to warm me up; I couldn't feel my fingers or my toes. When they get back he doesn't wash his hands after using the washroom!
      Long story short, it was cooler outside than in, and when we come home...we see that the guests dragged in mud and leaves and dirtied the carpet. My brother finally just had his breakfast a few moments ago. We were all very crabby, we argued and yelled and snapped at one another, and tomorrow we have to repeat the process. Let me assure you, I'm bringing all my winter gear and I'm going to buy fast food beforehand. And maybe instead of suffering through the tedium of television, we can actually indulge ourselves with conversation. Of course, if we do that we'll inevitably get on my brother's favorite topic; farts: frequency, smell, and loudness. So maybe we should just shut up and watch TV.
      Ooh, I just got an idea. I'll eat my food outside and listen to my music. Yeah, that sounds good. Cold and miserable, but at least I'll be relatively alone.