Collierville: Keeping My Clothes On...sort of

Ok. I get this question a lot “What is it like living in Collierville?”

I am not sure if people mean, “What is it like living in the town of Collierville,” or “What is it like living with your sister and her family?” It could go either way, really. So, I will use this here blog to answer these questions from time to time. I will tell you my experiences in both living in the uppity (in my eyes at least) town of Collierville and in living with my sister and her family. I will start with the latter:

Back story: David and I separated in February and since Mississippi and I have never  been BFFs, I chose to leave. I had no job and very little money at the time so my options were slim. Well, I really didn’t have any other option than to live with my parents.  This would have been fine if my sister, her husband and her two children weren’t living with my parents as well. That’s seven people living under one roof.

To say that this wasn’t an ideal living arrangement is an understatement (one day I will speak of this experience but today is not that day). I love my family as much as the next person but living with all of them in a normal sized home is a bit much, especially when you share a bathroom with four other people, one of whom is your brother in law.

I’m not speaking of his bathroom habits, I have no clue of what those are and I don’t want to know, but there was always the threat of walking in on a naked Ron which was not something that I wanted to do. Ever.

It almost happened once. It was early in the morning something happened, pretty sure it was due to a loud child waking up, and pretty much everyone was woken up. I got up to pee and as I opened the bathroom door, I heard a hurried “waitaminute!” it was Ron who ALSO got up to pee. The light was off and I didn’t see him and I was half asleep so I didn’t hear him either. Can you imagine the awkwardness if I had walked into the potty room and damn near rubbed asses with my brother in law while he was taking an early morning pee?

I then learned to always, ALWAYS ask “Do you have clothes on?” or, “Is anyone in here?” before walking into a room. You have to. The awkward possibilities are endless.

This got me through the months in Bartlett with no incidences to speak of, thankfully.

Then we moved to Collierville. I didn’t have to share a bathroom anymore! I got my own bathroom…sort of. My bathroom is also the same one the boys use. The only issue I have with this is the constant threat of sitting on/ stepping in of urine. Besides that,  the only downside is I have to walk down the hall to get there.

I don’t sleep with clothes on. I am not saying this to sound sexy or provocative or to invoke any form of pornographic images, I just get hot (temperature wise). It’s as simple as that. So when I wake up in the middle of the night in nothing but underwear and I have to pee, I have to weigh out the options in my head, “Okay, I can just go for it and hope that Ron, too, didn’t wake up to pee at 3:33 in the morning, or I can put on my Super Hero Squad t-shirt from earlier, pull it down over my ass and run to the bathroom…hmmm….”  I usually, lazily go for the former. Do you know how annoying it to wake up the middle of the night and get dressed? It’s the pits, really. So I usually just throw my arms around myself and hope for the best. I’m a gambling man.

Some of you may be asking yourself “So you, like, don’t care if the boys see you naked???”  The answer is no, but I probably should.

I am sure that all the parents who read this know that kids don’t respect boundaries or privacy. Unless the door is locked, they are coming in whether you are clothed, naked or mid-coitus. They don’t give a fuck about their parent’s privacy or their personal space and since I am sort of a half-ass parent figure, they don’t care about mine either. They will open the shower door to ask you where their red Power Ranger is. They will barge in while you are changing to show you the new level they achieved on Call of Duty (yes, they play Call of Duty). They will have a seat on the toilet while you are taking a bath and carry on a conversation with you about Nerf guns, and then when they are done they will leave the room to get their Nerf gun and then shoot you with it. All of these things have happened to me within the past few months. I have tried to shield them from my nudity but it’s impossible so I gave up a long time ago. Yeah, it’s a little fucked up but what are you going to do?

I’m sorry did you just say keep the door locked? Let me break it down for you what happens when I lock the door: Kid knocks/ bangs on the door until I answer. If I say “Give me a minute, I am changing,” they wait two seconds and then bang on the door again. You repeat yourself again and again and they just keep on banging until finally you are screaming at the top of your lungs, “LOOK! I WILL OPEN THE DOOR WHEN I AM FINISHED! GIVE ME A MINUTE! GOH!” they then start crying and you are left incredulous at yourself for consoling this asshole kid when all you wanted was five minutes to yourself to change out of your work underwear. So, yeah, locking the door is more work than it is worth.

Do they see their mother naked? All the damn time. All you have to do to see Christy naked is to open your eyes and there she is. I don’t know of one of my friends that have met my sister, male and female, that haven’t seen her naked. Her nudity has decreased, however, with the invention of the robe but I probably see a full-blown nipple at least once a week.

I am sure the day will come when the entirety of the Prewitt family will have seen me nekkid and the awkwardness in that house will live on until I move out. And when that day comes know that I will never, ever leave my room.