Burning Down the House

"Here's your ticket pack your bag: time for jumpin overboard..."

It seems like it is time for a new approach to this whole we're-separated-but-she'll-live-with-me-for-free arrangement.

I discovered that while I was at a friend's house last night watching the movie Borat, my wife had insisted that her 18-year old daughter stay with our little one while my wife went out drinking. She made her stay home, which is really unusual.

And while she was out drinking, her teenage daughter put our 5-year-old in bed early, and then had some friends over. I don't know how many there were, but they went out back and started a fire in the iron fire thingy on the patio. The 5-year-old didn't know where her sister was, and of course didn't realize that her sister had actually left the house to burn something.

This alarms me for several reasons. It alarms me that her mother would force the teenager to stay home, knowing that she is a vengeful scatter-brain. And it alarms me that the teenager would start a fire.

You see there is a history here. Torching the house is something they have handed down from mother to daughter. Her mother (my wife) was 18 when she burned down her mother's trailer. She was trying to warm up some solidified grease in a pan in the kitchen and forgot about it until the kitchen was ablaze and the grease was very warm.

Ten years earlier, my wife's mother burned down the trailer herself, for insurance money.

My step daughter tested her own judgment two years ago when she and her friends were sleeping over someone's house and somehow lit a book on fire. I have no idea how they lit a book on fire. I don't think they were intentionally book-burning, but nonetheless, it was burning in the friend's basement. Thinking quickly, they reached for their bottle of vodka to try to douse the flames.

At this point the story would get a lot more interesting except for the fact that a clever parent in the house had found the smuggled bottle of vodka and replaced the contents with water. As a parent, I would have replaced the children, but she decided that substituting water for vodka was punishment enough.

So you see, when either my wife or her equally intelligent daughter start setting things afire in or near my house--with my 5-year-old unattended upstairs--I get nervous.

Let's sum up the situation:

• My wife (who had been unfaithful for some time) declared independence and had her lawyer send me a settlement offer last July (9 months ago). She was going to move out.
  
• It is now April and she still lives in the house that I bought.
• She still hasn't signed the settlement so that I can pay her off.
• I pay all the bills even though she works.
• She was out drinking while her teenage daughter was building a fire with friends (and probably drinking)
• While our 5-year-old daughter was upstairs, in bed, watching TV.

There has to be a way to close this divorce deal and get her out of the house. I am buying her out but I can't do that until she signs the papers, which she doesn't care to do as long as she has free housing and things to burn. So I need to encourage her to leave without breaking the law and without escalating the war too much.

Operation: Pull the Rug Out

On Friday I am going to start a new home improvement project where I install hardwood flooring in the master (her) bedroom. But like so many of my home projects, I suspect that I might get stalled in the middle. It is entirely possible that I could procrastinate after I have removed all the old carpeting. And that would be a pain because the room would be so uncomfortable with only a plywood floor.

If only I finished these projects that I start.

Maybe, just maybe, she will start the moving out process. Or maybe she will reach for the vodka and matches.