"Cinemax is Boring"

Well today was another interesting day in our lives. It started out just fine and was happening along with no bumps in the road until Mr. "I ran up a $200 bill calling 900 numbers and then asked to go look at porn at the library" asked Lowell to take him out. He was very casual about it and didn't want to say where he wanted to go, only "I'll tell you when we get there." Well, since anybody who actually knows how to drive knows that it is somewhat helpful to know in advance where you are driving, we pushed the issue.

He finally confided to Lowell that he wanted to go to a local store, whose slogan is "where fun and fantasy meet reality." Ummm, hello, not really our idea of the best place to stimulate the economy, but technically, I guess he is an adult and does have the right to go there, but we questioned whether we had the responsibility to take him.

I called our supervisor and filled her in on the request and she very reasonably responded, "No." Well, as you can imagine, this was not an acceptable response. We talked about the fact that we are having a meeting tomorrow and will put this on the agenda to formalize whether or not this is a place where he can hang out alone, or if he has to have a staff member with him, or if he can even go at all. BUT, he didn't want to talk about it tomorrow. He yelled and cussed and took off down the street. In the meantime, the other roommate is crying and "sad" and is having a hard time digesting what is happening. So I leave Lowell and go out to locate the runaway.

He didn't look quite so far away when I first saw him. But after catching up with him, I was tired, and far from home. For whatever reason, I called out to him and he turned around and started walking back home with me (well kind of with me, we were heading the same direction and that's all that mattered). Once we were back home, he continued to insist that he was going to this store tonight - even if he had to walk. I'm still not sure what that was all about. If he was going to walk, why did he turn around and come home? We were halfway there. Which is probably what made us realize this was an empty threat. He was tired too.

After about thirty minutes of yelling at our supervisor on the phone, and making statements like "Cinemax is boring," he gave up, began to laugh, and asked if Lowell would take him grocery shopping. We were too worn down to argue. He got to go the store, but as you know, there is not a lot of fun or fantasy when shopping for groceries, only reality.