I had the dubious pleasure of dealing with my father and my cousin over the course of the weekend. Both of them wanted to assert their "dominance" and/or blame me for their troubles.

My parent's house has a recurrence of bed bugs. Nasty little buggers, as I well know. My father called me to list his troubles as a set of grievances against me. I have not been to their house for six months. I cannot be the cause, as he seems to dementedly think. Also, it's become apparent that he cannot tackle the problem on his own, but he stubbornly refuses to involve an expert because (and I quote) "they'll fleece ya!" Pest control is expensive, but at this point, he's spent thousands more (he replaces furniture willy-nilly) because of his ego. But sure, blame me for your problems.

The kicker? I'm at a point where I'm going to need financial help very, very soon. I still have two weeks before I can get back to work. Dad won't help, even though he has the means, and I can't even get a face to face to ask my mom. He's restricted access in the name of his ineffective DIY pest control.

I'll play the dutiful son and give him the name of a guy I know that does extremely effective bed bug pest control. I can only lead Dad to water. It's up to him to go for it.