PennSilverTaco's "Perfect 5-Lug Regular Cab" Build, Aspergers, and General BS MegaThread!

Another one I really like; I have a major soft spot for "midcentury modern" houses, and my biggest complain about this one is that like the one above, it does not have a walk-in closet in the master bathroom. From 2005 to 2007, my parents rented a house that didn't have walk-in closets from one of my dad's Navy buddies, but one of the dealbreakers for them when buying a house is if it does not have walk-in closets. I would not mind a starter home not having a walk-in closet, but as I started to make more money, I would want to upgrade to one that does; I am pretty sure that all new houses (single family, townhouse, and condo, etc) being built today have at least one walk-in closet in the master bedroom...

Contemporary Style House Plan - 5 Beds 0 Baths 1616 Sq/Ft Plan #72-575 - Eplans.com

 

Grandma would have had to find someone else to help her move. I would have left. And not come back. At least not if she was going to be there.

 

After the incident, my parents and I came to a mutual agreement that I would not be going back up there alone; I actually did go up there quite a bit after she'd moved out, when the house was still on the market and totally vacant, to check on the place. My grandma's house is actually a very large end unit "condo" in a 3-condo building, and one time in April or May 202, I came up there and found an HVAC technician working on my grandma's central air-conditioner because he thought it was the middle unit resident's air-conditioner. The layout of the building was such that my grandma's outdoor unit was located right next to the middle unit's back deck steps, but my grandma had a Carrier unit and the neighbor had a York unit, so he should have known he was working on the wrong unit...

I am also not the first relative that my grandma flipped out at in 2019 for "rushing her" in packing up the house, and I've lost count of the times she's had "moments" over the last 25 years or so. She was still grieving the loss of my grandpa at the time, and she has really mellowed out in just the last three years.

 

@TnShooter

In 1989, my grandma bought a lakehouse in Maine that she still owns to this day. In 2000, she bought the house next door because the family was growing and my mom's side of the family also came up from time to time. For the better part of the early 2000s, all visitors would stay in the second house next door while my grandparents stayed in the original house. By 2010-2011, she no longer needed the extra space because family wasn't coming up as often, so she sold the second house.

One time, somewhere in the range of 2003-2009, I was staying there with my parents for a week or two in the summer. We were staying in the second house, which my grandma still owned; I came over one morning and knocked on the door. My grandpa let me in and we were sitting in the living room chatting for a decent amount of time. My grandma finally woke up and came downstairs, and she absolutely flipped out when she saw me sitting on the couch, because I was staying next door and she wasn't expecting me to be there. We are not talking a simple "Oh, what are you doing here?" She seemingly forgot that I was her grandson staying next door and acted as though I was one of the neighbors who my grandpa had let in without getting her permission. My grandpa was always the calm one, and he actually apologized for how my grandma reacted to me sitting in the living room; I made a mad dash for the front door and ran back to the second house after attemping to explain that grandpa had let me in.

 

@TnShooter

In the summer of 2003, I stayed in Maine with my grandparents for several weeks while my parents were in Europe. This was beofre the incident mentioned above and I was actually staying in the original house since the one next door was vacant. I had brough an ancient but still fully functional TV from the second house, set it up in my room in the main house, and hooked up my PlayStation 2 so I could play Grand Theft Auto. This wasn't the problem.

I had a strategy guide for Vice City that for some reason I'd left at the second house, and I had been searching for it all morning; I finally found it, and was in stereotypical autism tunnel vision mode, excited to just get up to my room and play GTA.

The front door of the main house opens into the kitchen, and my grandma was in the kitchen cutting vegetables or something. She said "Good morning, Charlie." I had no intention of being disrespectful, but I was in tunnel vision mode and only thinking about playing video games. I totally ignored her and continued upstairs to my room; I wasn't even a third of the way up the stairs when my grandma screamed "GODDAMN IT, CHARLIE!" and took off after me. It was just a coincidence that she happened to have a sharp knife in her hand, but to a 14-year old autistic kid it was still terrifying.

My room was very small, probably smaller than the walk-in closets in my parents' house; I could literally jump from the doorway and land on the bed. The next thing I knew, my grandma had me cornered on the bed with a knife in one hand, screaming and going absolutely batshit crazy because I didn't acknowledge her when she said good morning. I forget how it ended, but after I explained the situation to my parents, I definitely recall that things went in my favor and my parents were not particularly pleased with my grandma for how she handled the situation...

 

Very nice find!

 

@ColoradoTJ
@shakerhood
@TnShooter

My relationship with my grandma in 2003 was a bit strained to say the least, but it was due to circumstances out of either of our control...

My grandparents owned four houses at that time, the two next door to each other in Maine that I just mentioned, and two in Florida that were directly across the street from each other. My great grandma lived in one of them, and the other one served as my grandparents' winter home. In December 2002, my grandparents drove from Maine down to Florida and stopped to Christmas with us in Northern Virginia. They initially stayed in one of the 2nd floor guestrooms in our 5-bedroom house.

Our house in the DC suburbs was this huge colonial built in 1989, and to this day it is one of my favorite houses that my parents ever owned despite its numerous quirks and shortcomings. The house originally had four bedrooms, two full bathrooms, and a half bathroom. The massive finished basement had a 5th bedroom, which no realtor would count as a bedroom because it had no windows, and a 3rd full bathroom.

My grandpa has had heart problems for the final four decades or so of his life, inherited from family. Thanks to amazing medical treatments, he lived until the age of 93. What absolutely nobody counted on was my grandpa, who was 78-79 at the time, becoming so sick that my grandparents were unable to continue the trip down to Florida.

My grandparents moved from the upstairs guestroom in the basement "guest suite", which quickly got on nerves because the TV area of the basement was basically my safe space. I would spend hours down there with my dog Molly, playing video games and watching cartoons. My grandmother basically booted me out of my own safe space in my own house and wouldn't let me down there without permission. Molly wasn't allowed down there at all.

I made the best of the situation and resorted to playing video games on the TV in the family room, which was fine by me because the main TV was bigger than the basement TV and also hooked up to a surround sound stereo system. On a few Saturday mornings, my grandpa came up to ask me to turn down the volume on the TV because it was vibrating the floor. The basement bedroom was directly below the family room and the vibrations kept my grandma from sleeping. The first two times, I complied, but after that I would argue with my grandpa.

My grandparents came in December 2002 and were unable to leave until probably April or May of 2003, so when I was dropped in Maine for the summer, I still hadn't quite gotten over the fact that my grandparents had basically colonized my house for six months and tensions were still high with my grandma.

 

@TnShooter
@wilcam47

I never took a bus to school after fifth grade, and was lucky enough to always be driven to school by my parents from 6th grade all the way through 12th grade. One time in early 2003 (when I was about halfway through 8th grade), when my grandparents were still staying with us, my parents were busy doing something and my grandma was supposed to pick me up; I knew that my parents were busy and my grandma was supposed to get me.

Well over 30 minutes passed from the time school ended, and my grandma still hadn't arrived; I did not get my first cell phone until high school, which started in September of that year, so I had to go to the main office and call my house. I knew my parents' cell phone numbers and my home landline, but not my grandma's cell phone. For whatever reason, as this was almost 20 years ago and I can't remember, nobody answered. I was worried that something had happened to my grandparents.

A teacher named Mrs. Kelbaugh, to whom I was really close, happened to show up in the office and wonder why I was still at school so late; I explained the situation, and she offered to give me a ride home. She had a late model Acura TL (I believe the car was a 2000, and this was early 2003, so it wasn't that old), and the prospect of riding in that excited me; I finally did get ahold of my parents, who in turn got ahold of my grandma, and my worry turned to blistering anger when I found out that both of my grandparents were fine and my grandma had actually forgotten that she was supposed to pick me up.

At that point, it would have been more convenient for my parents to come get me, and actually as I type this I am now beginning to remember what happened. My parents were busy doing something, and I believe that a flat tire delayed them even further.

Anyway, I don't think my parents wanted my grandma to pick me up at this point because I likely would have said some unkind things that I'd regret to this day. Even almost 20 years later, I can remember telling my dad firmly "I want to go home, I don't feel like waiting for you guys at school, I'm going with Mrs. K."

So, Mrs. K drove me home, and I knew exactly how to get to my house so we didn't need a GPS. Her Acura had heated seats, which was nice on that chilly day, and she let me listen to my favorite radio station. My grandma was waiting on the porch when I finally got home, and for some reason I'd put the window down in the Acura as we pulled onto my street. I had calmed down by the time I got home, but my grandma really tried my patience when she admonished me for leaving Mrs. K's window down.

 

@TnShooter

Another time during that same school year (2002-2003; 8th grade), I had been late to my first period class too many times, and my math teacher called my house to speak with my parents. My math teacher was an absolute sweetheart, probably about 28 years old at the time, and I had a crush on her.

Anyway, my parents weren't home and my grandma answered the phone and talked to my math teacher. I forget whether this was before or after the incident where she actually forgot to pick me up, but she was tasked with picking me up that day. After a miseable day at school, the last thing I wanted was to be lectured by my grandmother about something that quite frankly wasn't any of her business. If I remember correctly, I told her I didn't really want to talk about it, and that's how one hell of an argument started; I forget how it ended, but without a doubt I told my parents, and as a result I do not remember getting any more lectures from my grandma about my shortcomings in school.

 

@ABA180
@ColoradoTJ
@shakerhood
@Taco critter

And even when my Grandma meant well, she still occasionally managed to make things worse...

One time in 2005 or 2006, by which time we were living in Pennsylvania again, we were having a family gathering at my parents' house (the shitty one my parents rented from my dad's friend for two years). My grandma pulled a classic "grandma" move. My pants were hanging a bit low from what I remember, so she decided to do the grandmotherly thing and pull them up for me. The exact opposite happened...

Even though it didn't have walk-in closets in the master bedroom, that house was still around 2,600 square feet and had a decent-sized kitchen with a breakfast nook. We were in the kitchen, as in the whole family, and my grandma pulled down my pants in full view of everybody. I was about 16 years old, and it was a pretty embarassing situation, with the only saving grace being that it was in front of relatives and not at school; I still flipped the fuck out. My parents and pretty much everyone present that day took my side, and needless to say, my grandmother hasn't attempted to adjust my clothes with permission in the roughly 16-17 years since that happened.

 

@TnShooter

Then there was this time in about October 2005, not long after I started 11th grade, when my grandma was visiting and was tasked with picking me up from school. My grandmother bought a brand new Lexus RX300 in 2002 and sold it to a family friend in 2019. She picked me up in this Lexus; I was in a bad mood because of something that happened at school.

I had this fake arm/hand that was designed to be put in a door so it looked like the door had closed on somebody's arm. Every year from about 2003 until the fake arm disappeared, I would leave it sticking out from under the hood of one of our cars on Halloween as a joke. In 2003, I put it under the hood of my grandma's 1987 Mercedes that my dad took posession of after my grandma bought the Lexus, and I saw at least one person take a picture of it with their digital camera.

Anyway, back to the story. My parents bought me this decoration at Walmart for Halloween in either 2000 or 2001, and it was a staple at my house for well over a decade until it just disappeared; I would put it under the hood of my truck for the entire month of October and drive around, and I do believe it finally blew off on the 611 bypass.

My grandma stuck my beloved fake hand in the front passenger door of her Lexus in attempt to cheer me up and make me smile. There is a trick to safely placing such an item on a vehicle so it won't blow away, but my grandma didn't stick it into the door far enough; I came outside in a bad mood and my grandma asked me why I still unhappy after her attempt to cheer me up. Dumbfounded, I asked her what she was talking about. She told me she'd placed my fake hand in the door of the car, and I about freaked out. It wasn't like the time she forgot to pick me up at middle school less than three years earlier. She knew how much this damn thing meant to me, realized she'd messed up, and didn't reciprocate by getting hostile with me. She even told me that she'd buy me a new one if we couldn't find this one.

I hopped in the Lexus, and luckily it was a very short drive from my high school to the house we were living in at the time; I spotted my beloved fake hand sitting on the shoulder probably a mile from school, we stopped, and I reaquired it undamaged. Ironically, I ended up losing the hand for good a little over a decade later when I tempted fate by shoving it under the hood of the Tacoma.

 

@BkerChuck
@ColoradoTJ
@shakerhood
@Taco critter
@TnShooter
@wilcam47

I would like everybody who reads this to respond...

This happened sometime in 2007, though I am not entirely sure when. We had to live with my grandparents for about two or three months during the summer of 2007 while we waited for our brand new house to be completed, but I know this was well before that because the basement bedroom where I slept during that time was being finished at the time this happened. This is the townhouse in Furlong where we lived from September 2007 to March 2016, and not the larger single-family home we are currently in.

My aunt and uncle had driven up from Florida so my uncle could help turn an unfinished part of the basement into a bedroom. They had brought their Yorkshire Terrier puppy with them; I was sitting on the kitchen floor playing with the puppy, while my grandma and my aunt had a conversation about clothes or something.

My grandma asked my aunt something about the waist size of her pants if I remember correctly, and there was a brief pause in the conversation. When my aunt told my grandma her measurements, my grandma had the most spectacular brain fart of all time and forgotten she'd asked my aunt about her clothing size. All the while, I was just innocently sitting on the kitchen floor playing with the puppy.

During this bout of cerebral flatulence, my grandma came to the conclusion that I had randomly asked my aunt about her waist size or whatever, and started bitching at me. She's like "that's not something you ask a woman!" I just looked at her and asked "What the hell are you talking about?!?!"

Once again, my aunt and grandma were talking about clothes and I just happened to be in the kitchen playing the puppy, totally uninvolved in their conversation; I did not take to kindly to being accused of doing something I didn't do, and cue the drama...

I responded to my grandmother's accusatory question in a tone of voice that was far from polite, my grandmother took offense at being talked back to even though she was the one who started it, and it almost turned into an episode of Jerry Springer. There was no violence, but there was a lot of cussing and yelling. At one point, I shot my grandma the evil eye, and my aunt flipped out at me because she thought I was disrespecting my grandma by looking at her in such a way; I ultimately stormed out of the kitchen and went downstairs to hang out with my uncles who were working on the new bedroom.

My grandma ended up acknowledging her mistake and apologizing, but it was about another decade before my aunt finally got the message to stop picking on me. More on her later...

 

@shakerhood
@TnShooter

I love the aforementioned uncle with the Yorkshire Terrier puppy dearly. He has, for the 33+ years I've been on this earth, been one of my staunchest allies in more ways than one. He also happens to be my Godfather; I rarely got into disagreements with him, but one time in maybe 2016 it did happen.

We spent Thanksgiving at my grandma's house again, and he and my aunt drove up from Florida. The dishwasher had quit working rather suddenly, and since it was so old my grandma decided to just replace it, but she hadn't time to do so because it happened on such short notice.

My uncle's idea of being funny and spending quality time with me was to "volunteer" me to help him do the dishes. Helping to clear the table was one thing, but it wasn't my problem that the dishwasher had decided to shit the bed and didn't think it was my job to do the dishes. The fact I'd had two or three beers in a relatively short period of time certainly didn't help things; I was not drunk, but I wasn't sober either, and I just wanted to relax and watch football with my dad and grandpa. My grandpa died in April 2017 at the age of 93, and I don't remember if he was still alive when this happened or not, but if was then it would have been no later than November 2016; I just remember that it was at Thanksgiving after I started working at Puck, which means it was definitely no earlier than 2015.

Anyway, I grudglingly got up from my comfy spot on the living room couch to go into the kitchen and help my uncle. Call it a mother's intuition, but my mom knew that I was not happy about this and sensed that something bad was going to happen. She stood at the doorway between the kitchen to monitor the interaction between me and my uncle. In a stroke of bad luck, my grandma called her back into the dining room to show her something. I had been cleaning out a dish, and in my opinion I'd done it to the best of my ability, but it wasn't good enough for my uncle. He handed me the dish back, but I didn't take it; I was holding a piece of silverware, which I angrily threw into the sink before storming out of the kitchen and plopping down on the couch again.

My uncle was yelling at me to come back and finish the job, and I really don't think he realized how hostile he was being. Luckily, my parents had my back and convinced him that it was in his best interest to leave me alone. My uncle later apologized, and my parents also explained to me that this was my uncle's idea of bonding with his nephew; I have not had any altercations with my uncle since that incident, and thankfully, no dishwashers have inconveniently failed on Thanksgiving either.

 

I am far from being innocent when it comes to having started shit with family members of the last 25 years or so, but I think that pretty much everyone who reads that story will agree that I did nothing wrong...

 

I would pretty much what you said, “what are you talking about?”

 

@Taco critter

I have told @shakerhood stuff about my aunt via text message that I am not willing to go into detail about publicly, but I will share some stuff about her. First off, I want everybody reading this to know that I love all of my relatives dearly. However, while I love my aunt, I do not particularly like her. She is my flesh and blood, and nothing can change that. My aunt is a lesbian, and this has never bothered me in the slightest. This is my dad's younger sister. One of my cousins on my mom's side of the family made a homophobic remark about my aunt when I told him she was a lesbian, and I threatened to beat his ass if he said such a thing again. He apologized. It is worth noting that were a couple of dumb teenagers at the time.

My aunt moved to Colorado before I was born and lived there for the first 13 years or so of my life, and I can count the number of times I saw her before I started middle school on one hand. She moved to Pennsylvania in 2002, lived in Florida from probably 2004 to 2008, and then moved back to Pennsylvania in 2008-2009. She moved back down to Florida in 2019 and recently moved to Georgia, where she currently lives.

My aunt and I have been on fairly good terms for the last five years or so, but from 2009 until probably 2016 or 2017, I refused to go near her unless other family members were present.

From probably 2012 until 2016, I didn't spend as much time at my grandparents as I would have liked because my aunt moved out of her apartment and back in with my grandparents in about 2011-2012. My grandma (and my grandpa until he died in 2017) lived less than an hour away from me until 2019, but I only went there for day visits while my aunt was living there because she was so unpleasant to be around most of the time. She got another apartment and moved out in 2016-2017, and that's when I started frequenting my grandma's house, even spending the night again from time to time.

 

@shakerhood
@Taco critter
@TnShooter
@wilcam47

My aunt started really picking on me in about 2007, lashing out at me for everything from talking about cars too much, to eating too much, to pulling into my grandma's driveway too fast. Thankfully, my other relatives saw what was happening and took my side rather than thinking I was crazy when I complained about my aunt. The first noteworthy incident occured at my other grandma's house in November 2007, right after my grandpa's funeral. I was talking with another relative about cars and my aunt, who was sitting several feet away and not even involved in the conversation, rudely demanded that I stopped talking about cars basically because it was annoying her; I did not take too kindly to this and basically told her to go to hell.

 

It sounds like you don’t have any luck when visiting Grandma’s house.

Seems like that’s where all the trouble makers hang out.

 

Also, for the record, I had two sets of grandparents and great grandparents because of a divorce in the 1960s.

My biological paternal grandma, who I call Grammy, is the one who I've been ranting and raving about. She married my grandpa (Pop-pop) in the 1950s and had four kids. Specficially it was three boys and a girl, with one of the boys and the girl being twins, and the girl growing up to be the aunt I was routinely at odds with from the end of high school until I was almost 30. That marriage didn't work out. Both of my biological paternal grandparents remarried before the end of the 1970s. Pop-pop remarried first (though I forget exactly what year) and had a daughter with his second wife in 1975; I call my step-grandma "Nana J". Grammy remarried in 1977 to a man with several kids from a previous marriage, but whose wife had died. My step grandpa's name was Joyce Pipkin, and my cousins and I always just called him "Mr. P." They did not have any kids together.

As far as I was concerned, it just meant more birthday and Christmas presents!