Kindness or Spineless?

So, Friday night I pull into my driveway and damned if my brother and the goumada aren't sitting on my front porch. Mind you, it's unseasonably cold and rainy, and they look exceptionally pathetic huddled at the table waiting for me to get home, but my sympathy is tempered by my ESP. To stave off the inevitable, I let them in and hare into the bathroom, trembling with something between rage and cowardice, preparing myself to say NO! and NO! and NO! again.

Shit. I come back into the room, and he's waiting, primed to ask the unthinkable of me: he wants to borrow money. $150, to be exact. See, that'll cover three nights at a hotel room since they can't get into their apartment until the goumada's check comes in the mail and yada yada yada, I'm not listening anymore, at least not until I hear the words CREDIT CARD. Like that's gonna happen. But I got things to do, and I want them out, and at the moment I don't think I can listen to much more without completely losing it.

"How much is the room?"

"$48 for tonight, but like I said, we can't get in --"

"When do you expect her check?"

"Tomorrow. If we could just use your card --"

"Here." I dig in my wallet and hand him my last $60, money that's supposed to last me till my next paycheck. "If the check doesn't come, I'll give you the rest tomorrow."

"Oh, great, enough left over for gas and cigarettes. I'll get it back to you, I promise, just as soon --"

Yeah, whatever.

To be fair, the check did come on Saturday, and he brought the money right over, and I thought how lousy of me to always think the worst, even when he asked me to use my "good" credit to help him get a cell phone. The guy's got balls of plutonium, I swear, but I did manage to say no to that. Kudos for me.

Except today he came and "borrowed" a fan, a pot, a pan, a collander, and a goddamned T.V. A T.V.!

SHIT!

I'm thinking of moving.