Today I Am a Mean Ex
My ex agreed to handle Scout uniforms if I would handle karate uniforms. This weekend is New Scout’s first camping trip. Ex kept telling me it was next weekend. I kept saying “Scoutmaster told me it was the weekend after Labour Day. This weekend.” Guess who was right.
(But I wasn’t mean yet. I didn’t say, “I told you so” when ex contacted me on Tuesday night with the “news” that the trip is, in fact, THIS weekend and they leave at 6 p.m. Friday. Even though that meant that on Wednesday night we had to go buy New Scout a sleeping bag, backpack, etc., for camping, in addition to buying his brother’s soccer gear. So much for MY budget.)
I asked what New Scout needed for the trip, and pointed out that if New Scout was expected to wear a uniform, then Ex would need to take him shopping for it sometime soon, as New Scout would need to pack before Friday’s departure. Ex gave me a list and said he would handle uniforms.
Ex e-mails me yesterday to say that he got uniform pants and shirts, and the patches that need to be on them. Only he can’t sew, and his scout mom friend at work says iron-on isn’t good enough. (Duh. Iron-on patch + 30 boys + camping trip = lost patch.) Plus the pants need to be hemmed up. So he doesn’t actually come out and ask, but the implication is, can you sew on the patches and hem the pants. Only thing is, I can’t sew, either — you’d think Ex would know that; we did live together for five years, and I never once opened the sewing machine….). So of course I will have to ask my mother (Grandma).
(But I still wasn’t mean yet. I asked, and Grandma said she’d do her best.)
So Ex drops off the clothes last night when he picks up Soccer Boy for practise. New Scout and I have already left for karate class. So New Scout doesn’t get to try on his clothes until this morning — the morning of the departure for the trip. They leave in 10 hours.
I call Grandma at 10:30 to tell her I won’t be home for lunch because the left side of my neck has gone into spasm, practically paralysing my left arm, so I am going to the chiroprator to get unkinked. Grandma is in tears. She has sewn on all the patches and just had New Scout try on his shirt to see if they are correctly placed (with the pants, so she could mark where to place the hem), only to find that Ex has bought the 11-year-old New Scout a size 14 shirt and size 12 pants. 
Now, I wouldn’t be surprised by this if New Scout were a sturdy-built child. But he’s not. He’s small for his age, weighs about 70 pounds, and is rail-thin. He wears a size 10 slim pants, and a size 8-10 shirt. Furthermore, the shirt (acquired secondhand) is almost worn out, so Grandma had to re-sew all the seams to make it hold together. Now she’s done all this work only to find that the child can’t wear the shirt, and that the pants she was given to hem will hold both New Scout and Soccer Boy, with room to spare.
Grandma says she will take New Scout to the scout shop to get a uniform that fits, but she now cannot guarantee that the child will be ready for the camping trip. She’s devastated and afraid New Scout is going to be embarrassed and/or made fun of. I calm Grandma down, tell her to get New Scout whatever she thinks he needs, and buy a new set of patches since there’s no way she will have time to remove the old ones and re-sew them to the new shirt.
And then I e-mail Ex to tell him what has happened, and include this statement: “I will reimburse [Grandma], but I will need you to reimburse me. And considering that [Grandma] will have spent pretty much the whole day on this, it might be a nice gesture of thanks if you offered to reimburse her for her time.” Ex thinks I am mean and unreasonable. 