Oh brother...

Tonight while I write, I am a bit frustrated. My college-aged brother has been annoying me again.

This past fall the kitchen dishwasher broke and my family has had to wash dishes by hand for a couple of months. It is really not big deal to me. I don't care about doing dishes. Sure, it is a little boring and not fun at all, but I do it because I am part of a family and I know that it is my responsibility to help out.
My brother has been back for vacation for almost a month now and ever since he has been back washing the dishes has become so what of an ordeal. My sister and I had a system worked out pretty well and we never really fought over who had to do the dishes, but the moment my brother came back, everything changed.
My parents decided to give him some of the washing responsibility and my sister and I explained to how we operated. He ignored everything we said and started to do his own thing. That wasn't ideal, but we worked with it and found our grove again. A couple times he has refused to wash dishes on the grounds that he has to wash dishes every night at his dorm and that he is on vacation, so he shouldn' t have to do anything.
I will admit that college is hard and he is on vacation, but my sister and I were also on vacation and had to do the dishes everynight, on top of break homework (which he had none of) and studying for finals after the break (another thing he didn't have to do). And the whole washing dished every night thing, WHATEVER!! At most, he has to wash dishes for himself and his roommate, but not for SIX other people, the dishes made to make dinner, and all the other dished accumulate between meal such as cups and saucers.
Today, the final straw broke. He just plain refused to do anything, even after dad had asked him TWICE to do something. I told him to give me one good excuse why he shouldn't have to help out the family which he belongs to and my sister and I would wash for him. He couldn't even come up with one. He just looked at me and told me that he was on vacation and that he had done so much other stuff today and he deserved a break.
BULLSHIT!
My sister finally stepped up and washed the dished, but we are both still upset at his behavior.
He is still part of this family and he has to pitch in when we need his help. Granted, he did work in the attic today, but he has spent the past two weeks watching TV and playing Wii while my sister and I were at school.

I sound really whinny, but I just wanted to get it out. I can't really talk to my mom or dad about it becaue they pull the whole college card, and my little sister would just get angry and go off on a tagent about how my brother still has his old room while she is sharing a room with our other 7-year-old sister (which I also agree is totally wrong, but I don't even want to get into that).
She did once come out and say "Its just because you love him more than us," and my mom had that very quick "Of couse not" answer.

Luckily he is going home tomorrow and everything will go back to the way it should be, brother free. This sounds so cold-hearted of me, but I kind of like it better when he is not around. I really, really do.

talk later,
Catt