An old neighbour of mine let’s call her Karen. She was my room mates friend by association through their children. I was 20 and living with someone in their 50s and their child. He was my college friend. Weird situation, I learned a lot though.
Karen was immature, irresponsible, and kind of dumb tbh. She had three kids. One was not living with her as he had severe mental disabilities. That alone isn’t enough for me to feel sorry for her. She smoked like a god damned chimney. So did I at the time.
So it started, her asking for some smokes. I’d give some to her my room mate would too. We wouldn’t know we both were. I figured it was just easier for me to give her some instead of her asking my room mate then my room mate asking for smokes from me. We were all pretty poor. We lived in a shitty townhouse complex.
Well she kept asking for more and more things, eventually cash. She’d “borrow” some from me then from my room mate and neither of us knew we were both giving her money. She wouldn’t pay us back a lot. I know I shouldn’t have given her money but I got guilt tripped by her kids at home who might not eat that day if I don’t. As long as the money got spent on food not smokes of booze :/
I started giving her food. Honestly I started stealing food from my job at the time. I had no money to give and I was making peanuts. Out of all the “adults” my room mate included there was a long period of time I was the only person with a job. Karen’s boyfriend (has a warrant out for his arrest) didn’t have a job. Just drank too much and smoked. Those two never had a hobby. So without money I stole food from work. Fed myself and the kids. I got caught eventually and lost my job. I’ll call that one my fault!
So I get another job. Karen goes right back to asking me for stuff. This time she’s stealing and we think her daughter was doing some of that for her. We’ve had cash and food go missing. I caught her one day with one of our $20 bills. She didn’t know I knew, brazenly taken from my roommates wallet he left. Only me and her could have stolen it. I didn’t take the money. She constantly got those rent town shit and couldn’t pay it back and they’d take everything back over and over again.
Anyways she’s annoying, loud, just stalked Facebook all day, smoked outside on the patio, and that’s almost all I ever saw her do. No playing with the kids, helping with homework, going shopping.
Well something bad happened. Her father died. Now her crazy mother is moving and and she’s bringing $280K with her. Karen get a cool $100k Almost $400k. We didn’t see her for MONTHS. Didn’t invite us over, didn’t pay us back. Didn’t talk to us at all. She got new shoes, new TV, new patio furniture. That’s about all I ever saw that they could have bought. They didn’t buy a car, oh yeah I gave them rides as the only driver of the bunch fucking constantly. I cant think of one responsible thing they bought.
8 months later. ALL of the money is gone. Absolutely nothing of value to be shown for it. I mean shoes and tables and TVs but I couldn’t see $400k worth (really $300k since the other daughter stole a bunch of money for heroin for herself and her son). We here a knock on the door and it’s Karen, I couldn’t fucking believe myself. In 8 months they spent the equivalent of ten times my salary. I had no idea what to say. It was this point I was getting ready to have a mental breakdown and leave.
She still had debts from the rent to own places. She never listened to us to stop getting shot there. She asked for money to help pay or her surround sound would be gone. And maybe the one TV. I laughed. I said no. Fuck I hope my room mate did.
So not long after that I left the place to go lice with my parents again, try n get my shit together. One day I went over to Karen’s place and I fucking deemed them out. I lost it. I told them mostly everything here. Called them a bunch of things that they were. Called out how they stole from us, begged for everything from us, took complete advantage of us, never paid us back, just everything. I told them how they were taking advantage of a widow with a young son. I spent an actual 45 min reeming them out in their backyard. It was cathartic. I just finished with a “fuck you Karen, Fuck you Steve, I hope I never see you again”
My room mate continued to live in that place for another year. He still gave her money after I left. Even after saying how scummy they were for taking money from us never paying it back, cause us to go hungry ourselves for her kids sake she still asked for money. I told my room mate constantly to not give her money. Fucking god know why’s he did.
That’s not everything. Not in the slightest. We were all friends once and got along. I think I mostly spent time with them because I had no one else around. It was company. I’m still a little mad about this period of time in my life. I got screwed over hard. I was way too young for the shit I went through. My room mate was way to old to not know better. I’m totally between my roommate and Karen I think I lent out or gave away close to $5000 that year. My salary was $23k. I lost a bunch of weight at least. And turns out I don’t hate kids. Turns out I’m pretty responsible in comparison to other people.
I’d like to think I learned a lot from this. I think I did. But not much of it positive about humanity, Morse about how to prefect myself. How to say no. How to find new friends. How to swallow your pride and move back in with the folks.