I am all about helping people out when they need it, but sometimes there is a fine line between helping out and being taken advantage of.  And I think that line is being crossed.  I have a neighbor who is notorious for taking advantage of good-hearted people when it comes to watching her kids.  She took complete advantage of a former neighbor, ruining their close friendship in the process.  It seems to be starting to happen with me now.  Monday morning, she showed up at my door right after the bus left with her two youngest in underwear, wanting me to watch them while she ran to the hospital with a relative.  Fine, I understand emergencies.  She comes back and gets them and 10 minutes later, she is back at my door telling me she needs me to put one of them on the bus in an hour for her.  Um, okay.  That afternoon, the bus comes and she is nowhere to be found.  So, her 2 kids that got off the bus came home with me.  She got home, I gave her her kids, no thanks, no nothing.  Instead, an hour later she is down here informing me that I needed to watch the 4yo the next day (Tuesday) until the pre-school bus came.  Well, I couldn’t, and she got all kinds of huffy about it.  So, instead, she isn’t home when he gets off the bus after school.  WTH?  Then this morning, I get a knock at my door at 0650 and there she is with 2 of the kids, telling me I need to watch them.  NOT a good time, considering I was trying to get my own 4 out and to the bus stop for the bus at 0700.   I had already agreed to watch the 4yo, but not until 0830 and only until the bus came at 1130.  ½ hour later and she came back, took them, and informed me that the one I was supposed to be watching would be back in a few minutes.  Never mind that it was an hour earlier, that she hadn’t even asked.  I think that is what pisses me off.  Not so much the unexpected having to watch the kids, but not being asked.  She tells me, doesn’t ask, and never says thank you.  THAT is what I hate.

But the good part was that I got to chat with my girl Renee, which made it better,… despite the temper fits, the thrown glasses of milk, and the resulting playroom that now looks like a tornado hit it!