Life

I Lie Like A Rug

Posted on October 16, 2020October 16, 2020 by Kylie

Any given week, I will lie forty nine or more times. Don’t shake your head in disgust, these are the same lies I hear told to me on a daily basis. An example of my lies include white lies, lies to avoid hurting feelings, lies about how I come up with the random statistics that I do, and lies to build myself and others up. Anybody who says that they don’t do the same is probably lying about lying.

It is ingrained in us from childhood to give auto-responses to the trigger phrases and words that are part of our cultural greetings, etc. It is also ingrained in us not to be rude and/or tell people things that are considered rude in our society. And now, more than ever before, we have to tiptoe around offending people constantly and being politically correct. In my opinion, this has gotten a little out of hand.

So, am I really living the dream? Which is what I automatically respond to someone who asks me how I am while I’m at work. No, I am not living the dream. That could be no further from the truth. In truth, I am grasping my final shred of dignity so hard my knuckles are white. This alone is preventing a felony charge to head my way.

Image for post — Photo by Kawin Harasai on Unsplash

How are you?

This is to be answered by only, “I’m great, and you?” I repeat, this is the only answer. Do not tell them about your horrible menstrual cycle, your husband’s snoring, or your battle to get your children to care about their teeth. They do not really care. It is really all just a platitude. It is a carefully orchestrated question that means nothing in reality.

How’s your day?

“Living the dream!” is the only reply to this one. Telling them that your day, “Sucks a bag of d786s!” is not appropriate and may even get you written up. Even if you tell them something innocent, such as “I’m going to my friend’s house after work,” they don’t care or even want to know. It was shocking to me when I finally realized that these strangers didn’t really want an honest answer from me.

I don’t know

Without thinking, even while knowing that I do in fact know the answer, I will say I don’t know if I think someone is accusing me of something. For instance, when my husband says, “Who ate my cheesecake?” I might have cheesecake dangling from my bottom lip, but I will stand by my response of, “I don’t know.”

This cannot mean I have great character. I like to find any excuse to remove some of the shame that this makes me feel by saying it is a panic induced response. I hope I’m not really that kind of person.

I’m great. And you?

Let’s clear something up right now. I have been great a total of three times in my life and none of them involved speaking with the public. I am not great. In fact, I am often one second away from a complete meltdown. My life is a clusterfuck. Even so, I love it.

I will always and forever answer, “Great. And you?” when asked how I am, though. Because you and I both know that nobody really wants the honest answer to that question. This is the only other acceptable response to getting asked how you are other than the, “Living the dream.”

If your life is actually great, I’m happy for you. I don’t need to know that though.

However, I don’t believe it is all great for anyone, no matter what anybody might claim. Just saying.

And also, nobody likes a brown-noser.

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Life

Gone In An Instant: The Images Of My Life

Posted on October 5, 2020 by Kylie

This illusion – presented as a moment — has always been named a memory to me – Kylie

To make sure that I start this article off on a hugely depressing note, I would like to begin with a fire that devastated my little apartment when I was a young wife with two small children.

It was a dark night, as nights tend to be, and I had put the children to bed and was preparing myself for the same. I heard my small dogs barking ferociously all of a sudden. This wasn’t like them as they did not have little man syndrome like most little dogs do. Nervous since my husband was at work that night, I got up to investigate.

At first, nothing seemed amiss, but it wasn’t long before I smelled the distinct odor of smoke. Since I knew that I was not at a bonfire, I was immediately uneasy and ran looking out all of the windows. Nothing seemed wrong, so I headed back to bed. As soon as I got comfortable, the dogs started up again. I waited about 10 minutes while also yelling in my loudest whisper for them to shut the hell up. Then, I got up and walked back out to the living room. This time I looked out the peep hole thinking maybe I had a midnight visitor which would be completely uncalled for and unexpected.

I put my eye up to the peep hole, looked out, and all I saw was flame. Four seconds later, I felt the heat from the door that had transferred onto my face causing a slight burn. Panicking, but also realizing how lucky I was to be on the ground floor, I grabbed my children and my dogs in one fell swoop. That is not a little feat for someone who that weighed 99 pounds. Yet, I was somehow able to open the dining room window and get all of us outside in one motion.

Within moments a crowd had gathered around and the fire department was busy doing their job with the fire. They determined that someone walking by had tossed a cigarette butt causing the pine straw that lined the entire building exterior to catch fire. Hours later, I was left with healthy animals and children, minor smoke damage to my lungs, a few burns, and the complete loss of everything I owned. Anything that had not burned was ruined from the smoke or the water.

It was my first time ever considering the trauma of losing these kind of items. I had known of it in the past, but I have never taken the time to consider the implications of memories that can never be replaced or heirlooms that have been surviving throughout centuries burned in a flash.

A burning photograph with a woman crying on it. — Photo by PH romao on Unsplash

Being a mother and a woman, I shoved my feelings of loss to the side and moved on with rebuilding my life. The Red Cross stepped in as well as insurance and replaced furniture and clothes in addition to providing a new apartment. This was possible because we did opt to pay the extra nine dollars a month to have Renters insurance, although at the time we never thought we would use it. Isn’t that what everyone thinks?

I thought I got through that time pretty much undamaged until I realized later in life that I was a photo hoarder and almost obsessive with my memory making. All of my childhood photos and the baby pictures of my children were burned in the fire. I often thought about all the albums and scrapbooks I had back then. I missed the countless hours that I would spend pulling out these albums to reminisce about my childhood or adding to them with each little event in my children’s lives.

Starting over is something I have had to do many times. It has never been easy, but mostly necessary and my decision. Losing all of your material possessions adds a new traumatic twist to things. Too ashamed to express anything other than my extreme gratitude that no one was hurt, I didn’t allow myself to grieve for my memories that were lost until many years later.

Black and white photo of a man and baby with a pocket watch set beside the old photo. — Photo by Anne Nygård on Unsplash

This is not the end of the story.

As history tends to do, it repeated itself many years later. My children were older and I had remarried and had two more children. My first husband had passed away and I was married to my second husband who turned out to be a narcissistic piece of shit if you want me to put it politely.

During one of his drug induced jealous rages, he hit me where he knew it would hurt the most by pulling out all of my photographs and burning them in front of my face. It was one of many traumatic and cruel things he did just because he could.

These unhappy stories from my past are not ones I tell many people for obvious reasons. But I do get tired of getting told to stay in the moment instead of taking pictures. I am an adult. I know what I should do. I also know that I am doing my best and that is good enough for me. Any issues I have or don’t have is not their business. I will keep on replacing, capturing, and making memories as often as I can. Anyone that doesn’t like that can turn away, walk off, or shut up.

A beautiful picture of a family facing a sunset. They are standing on a log and there are several more logs around. — Photo by Haseeb Jamil on Unsplash

Admittedly, I have not learned a whole lot in my lifetime, but one of the few things I have learned is that everyone has different experiences and traumas that make them who they are at any given moment in time. We don’t need to apologize for the way we have chosen to get through this life, or how we heal, or how we grow. We don’t need to explain our idiosyncrasies to anyone for any reason.

I do not plan to stop documenting memories or capturing the images of my life. Legacies do not leave themselves.

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creeps, Humor, Life

Defeated By A Cougar

Posted on October 1, 2020October 1, 2020 by Kylie

The day in question started as a normal but stressful day. It ended up being entertaining as hell and I also felt like I made a difference in a possible future douche bag transition. What I’m trying to say is, There’s a very good possibility that because of my extreme roll reversing humiliation that I might have caused a future misogynistic douche bag in training to turn into a feminist based gentleman.

I’m sure that’s probably a stretch but I am willing to say that that’s a possibility. At the very minimum, he learned there are some women you don’t mess with and he needs to tread carefully before he gets his ass beat by a 5 foot 3 inch, 115 pound girl. Actually, I’m a woman but I like to sometimes refer to myself as a girl because I’m all about wishful thinking.

Before I go any further, you may want to read up on my first article I posted here about this issue. I have published a couple, but this one was the first which touched on the harassment that I face on a daily basis over messenger.Harassment via Facebook MessengerEver since I opened my Facebook page to the public (to advance my Real Estate and writing career),I have been harassed…link.medium.com

Before I begin, I would like to apologize in advance for the massive amount of screenshots I will be posting as evidence of this experience. I have deleted his last name and profile picture and some half assed way to protect his identity from being revealed as an online woman harasser. I would also like to note that as a general rule, he has been much more polite than some of the others, but he caught me on the wrong day and ended up getting a lesson that I hope he will pay attention to.

It all started in response to a Facebook post that I did concerning a car I was trying to sell.

This first screenshot shows him reaching out to me in reference to my car. He expresses that he wants it and wants to know how I will get it to him. Since he is clearly in another country located oceans away, I rather snuggly tell him that he cannot have it unless he comes over here to Georgia and drives it back. I thought the case was shut at that point. I was wrong.

In the next message he plays with me that he does not in fact have the money to pay for the car but that he would be very appreciative if I gifted it to him. That set my nerves a fire because, in my personal life at the moment, I am surrounded by people that don’t want to work and want to be handed everything. I will admit that that is definitely a trigger for me.

OK this is my lengthy and really sarcastic response to his barely veiled attempt to get me to give him my car. I will admit that I had had a bad day so I probably was a little bit harsh but I don’t regret it. I have two daughters and I hope that they will put these jerks in their place when they do this kind of crap to them too.

Before I post the next section, I would like to point out that never did he try to argue with the fact that I said I owned a helicopter.

Things went straight from my response above to his apparent offer for me to come over there and live with him as his wife, and American trophy, so we could start a business together. At this point, I started becoming amused because this is clearly the most ridiculous shit I’ve ever heard. This man must really think American women are some dumb idiots that just fell off the turnip truck. So, I decided to give him what he was looking for.

I am pretty proud of the above work because it is all a bunch of nonsense and shit talking design to make him see that I am clearly messing with him. However, he does not see that and I don’t know if that’s from the language barrier or if he is just really ignorant.

In this message, he tries to backtrack and say he was just enjoying a happy vision of us together in Pakistan. Mind you, at this point, I still don’t know who this guy is or even what he looks like. I don’t care enough to even pull up his profile picture.

I think this one is my favorite response that I sent him. It is a perfect blend of completely over the top sarcasm, but also combines subtle flirtation by comparing him to Justin Timberlake. I don’t know if he knows who that is but I’m pretty sure he looked it up. after this one, I was sure he would not message me again. But once again, I was wrong. This tends to be a consistent theme with me and predicting the behavior patterns of men.

Here he tries to bow out gracefully, but I do not allow it. I continue on with my ridiculous antics.

The uncertainty and nervousness that he is showing in this message is a beautiful thing. Finally, he is starting to see that I am not being genuine with him, or if I am that I am quite possibly bat shit crazy.

I intentionally step things up a notch. This is to increase any uncomfortable feelings he may be experiencing in response to being the harrassed instead of the harasser.

At this point, his unease is visible and palpable. He is pulling out any and every excuse he can to try and get away from me now. He is frantically. trying to shut the can of worms that he pried open with his unsolicited advances.

Please be advised that I am completely aware of the time difference between here and Pakistan. However, I do not want him to become aware of the fact that I own any brain cells yet. He is obviously ingrained to believe that women are morons, especially American ones.

He tries blatantly ignoring my existence, so I purposely sent him a message after a few minutes to let him know that I am still around.

Here he tries to back out of the mess he has gotten himself into. Bless his heart, he does try to do it in a nice way.

This saga finally ended as all great stories must. I was entertained for hours, a lesson was learned by him, and maybe the world is rid of one less douche.

I may not have won the war against the creeps on messenger, but I won this battle.

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Career, Life, property management, tips, Uncategorized

Maintaining Composure During Heated Situations

Posted on September 25, 2020September 26, 2020 by Kylie

Curse words spewed out of my mouth and into the tenant’s face. This wasn’t the first time that I had been pushed to my breaking point by being screamed at, cussed out, and sometimes pushed around. As a landlord, aka property manager, I have many houses to manage all over every part of my city. I have learned how to deal specifically with each section of the public.

There are the elitist tenants who call me every second about everything. They, for the most part, cannot do any home repair items themselves. This includes changing air filters, smoke detector batteries, and resetting tripped breakers. They hide their ignorance by flaunting their money. They have been brainwashed into thinking money is the same as intelligence. They hide their loneliness by talking, whining, and complaining to everyone they meet.

There are the poor tenants who struggle to survive who blame me personally when they can’t pay their rent. They will drive to my office and threaten me if eviction is looming. They never call about maintenance issues unless it is dire because they just want to be left alone and don’t want anyone seeing the messy state of their frantic lives.

There are the young tenants who are living alone for the first time and need help with everything from how to pay rent, use of an online app to submitting a maintenance request.

Then there are the old tenants who live alone or with a spouse listening to the echoes of their children in the halls from years past. They look forward to any contact and will happily chit chat with someone who calls, from telemarketer to me or my staff, for hours.

At any given moment, I can go from being physically pushed and verbally abused to spending half an hour talking with the sweetest little old lady I’ve ever met. It took me a good year to learn how to maintain my composure during these swift emotional transitions. I had to create boundaries and try to stick with them, becoming never too mad, too attached, or too invested in any one person’s circumstance.

Of course, this doesn’t always work and sometimes I lose my footing. I have dropped my professionalism down the tubes and hit back, yelled back, babysat, bought food, bought clothes, and loaned rent money. I have regretted doing this most of the time. I usually end up getting taken advantage of once anyone sees that I have heartstrings to pull. I have people that have turned on me as soon as I helped them.

I would like to think I have learned my lesson, but someone will come along and test my boundaries and find them lacking. Setting boundaries is essential in this line of work, as in many others that deal with the public.

You have to work hard not to become jaded because people lie about anything if it benefits them somehow. My sense of humor and not taking things personally have really been the two biggest things to keep me successful in this career and not burned out and jaded.

I continue to always look for the little acts of human kindness that are shown periodically. That brings fresh air to every one of us. Sometimes those little acts are enough to keep going for.

By setting boundaries, keeping my sense of humor, and searching for human acts of kindness every day, I am able to survive this work and hope that I have made a difference to someone, somewhere along the way.

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Humor, Life

The Religious Need To Stop Talking And Start Doing

Posted on September 22, 2020 by Kylie

I recently learned that most of my religious friends were only pretending. I was always the odd one because I didn’t go to church or practice religion, but we just didn’t talk about it and we were fine. However, I didn’t expect that these “Christian” friends of mine would shun me so quickly for taking in a homeless person who we all knew from school. She had just gotten over a drug problem and was, according to her, trying to make a better life for her and her daughter. So, I moved her in. Just like that, my friends no longer felt comfortable at my house.

This shouldn’t have surprised me so much, especially since one of these friends had done nothing but let me down and be passive aggressive in the past few years. She just thought we were all too dumb to notice it, but we all saw through her cattiness. She would talk out of both sides of her mouth, as my mama always says.

But it did surprise me. Because this person made sure everyone knew she went to church on Sundays with her family. And she used to be different. She used to be someone who would help others. Now, she just talks shit about anyone in her line of vision. I guess she doesn’t realize yet how easily that person could be her.

Man with his back turned to people wearing hat that says, “Love Your Neighbor.” — Photo by Nina Strehl on Unsplash

I try not to let this hurt me but to see this as the final straw. Her character had finally been revealed to me and before this God that she pretends to try to impress on Sundays. I am better off without someone like this even though it has always been hard for me to turn my back on anyone. The feelings I have for her now will prevent me from forgiving this one of her misdeeds, though.

I don’t care if the person I took into my home gets her life back on track in the end or not because that’s not on me. I did my part. I took an action beyond saying, “I’ll pray for you.” I showed my love. I hope one day this friend, who left me for this act, will look in the mirror and fix the ugliness that has descended upon her character. I fear she might face a hard lesson in the future, if not.

We all fall down. Look around you and see who’s there for you when you do. It’s an eye-opening experience. It’s often not the ones we would imagine it to be. Unfortunately, all too often, the ones we expect the most out of let us down more often than otherwise. If I have learned anything the hard way, it is that not everyone has the heart that I do or the feelings I have. What may be important to me, might not be important to someone else.

Hand held up to the sun in a circle. — Photo by Daoudi Aissa on Unsplash

I’m fine with that. As long as we are talking about mayonnaise or hobbies. I do not hold well with friends that have bad characters. That is not something I can overlook as just a minor flaw.

I am not going to let this hurt me anymore. I have friends and, although I will miss her, I don’t need any more enemies. I wish her the best, but not with me.

I wish more religious people would put their words into action and their money where their mouth is.

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Content, creeps, Humor

Seduced By Messenger

Posted on September 21, 2020 by Kylie

His audacity shocked me. Sweat glistened on his face in his profile picture. His 1970’s era thick mustache was clearly something he was proud of while the toothpaste splattered mirror in his picture’s background had not been cleaned very recently, if ever.

I stared at him and read his message forty-three times back to back, trying to figure out if this was real. Was my wildest fantasy finally coming to fruition?Not two minutes later, but before I could respond, he messaged again. This time it was a GIF with a rose, heart, and a teddy bear. All the things every woman on the face of the earth loves according to every man. It was at that pivotal moment when I made the decision to break the bond I had with my husband and message back this studly speciman. Trying to resist this kind of obviously fated connection was just ludicrous and pointless.

I was beginning to type out my erotic, but love filled, response to him when his third message came through. I opened it, scanned it, and I knew that I had to have my tubes untied as soon as humanly possible so I could carry his child. It was the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen and the only thing I have ever wanted. It was a dick pic from a stranger. That’s right. Every woman’s dream

Sweating profusely now, I started typing. I put a lot of thought in my response so he would know how much I appreciated every one of his messages. But before I could hit send, I got another message notification.

This time it just said, “Bitch.” I quickly finished my heartfelt message and pressed send. Half a second later, it gave me an indication that I had been blocked and my message did not go through to him.

Well, crap. I lost Prince Charming. Let this be a lesson to us all. I made the decision to stay with the amazing husband that I had.

Public Service Announcement: This is purely satirical and for fun. No one likes that, Randy. Cut it out. Go clean your bathroom mirror.

Before this woman, the attention you try and spark will never ignite — Kylie

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How are you?

How’s your day?

I don’t know

I’m great. And you?

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