You guys may recall that DH's parents think I am the asshole when it comes to ASS...oh my, how things have changed.

ASS goes to StateUniversity and he has secured himself a great internship this summer at MajorCarMaker Company in CityJustOutsideDetroit  in the IT department doing programming.  It's a great gig that should turn into an offer, assuming he doesn't fuck it up.  Jury is still out on that, because, well, because he is an ASS.

When ASS got the gig, the deal was that he would spend the summer with DH's parents in TownWhereDHandIGrewUp, which is about a 20 minute drive from CityJustOutsideDetroit.  Free place to live, meals cooked for you, sounds great, right??  Wrong

Two weeks ago, DH texted me and asked me to drive by an address on my way home from work.  He said that it was the house where ASS and two kids who are also working at MajorCarMaker this summer were going to live.  I work in downtown Detroit, and am pretty familiar with the city, and I knew right away that this was not a nice part of town.  And, by "not nice", I mean straight up crumbling housing stock, dilapidated buildings and drug houses.  There are lots and lots of great things happening in Detroit, but not in this neighborhood.   Anyway, I drove by the house on my way home that night.

What I saw was an extremely run down street with abandoned houses, houses with no roofs, roofs caving in.  A few intact houses here and there.  Tons of kids running in the street playing in the broken fire hydrant and a whole bunch of dudes sitting on the stoop holding paper bags and drinking from them.  

I don't scare easily and I have lived in three major urban cities, but this neighborhood scared the crap out of me.  Literally out of Central Casting for urban blight.  I kept driving right on down the street, hopped on the freeway and headed home.  While at a stop light, I texted my husband "there is no way that that kid is living in that house."

The next day, DH was supposed to go up to StateUniversity to pick up ASS.  Once he got there, they loaded up ASS's stuff and headed back downstate.  They were driving in their own cars.  They stopped for lunch, and apparently had a chat about the house, the location, the fact that they would likely be targets, the fact that ASS would have no idea how to handle a scary situation should it pop up, etc.  They then went on their way to DH's parents house to unload ASS's stuff until he could move it to the scary house the next day.

When they got to DH's parents' house, ASS had decided that he wasn't going to live in the Detroit house, but would stay with his grandparents as originally planned.  They are going to be out of town for six of the twelve weeks ASS will be working at his internship driving Route 66, so he would have the whole place to himself for half of the summer.  All seemed good.  

ASS started his job on Monday.  Last night, DH and I were sitting on the couch watching some television when his phone rings. It's his dad.  This is what I hear:

DH - "Hi dad...what?  seriously?  now?  right now?   okay, well what the hell happened?  You are kidding me, right?  Oh, for fuck's sake.  No, you guys didn't do anything wrong.  Guess he will have to learn the hard way.  Yeah, he can be a real dick sometimes.  Yeah, that's how he was when he lived with us.  Okay, talk to you later."

Of course, I ask what ASS did :-)   Turns out, at 9:00 last night, he threw his clothes in his car and moved out so he could go live in the shitty house in Detroit.  Why, you ask?  What horrible thing did DH's parents ask him to do?  Well, for starters, DH's mom (who is 76) asked ASS to help her carry in the groceries.  Also, she asked him to set the table and pointed him to the dishes that she had already put on the table, so all he literally had to do was set the table.

Apparently, there was some disagreement about setting the table (DH told me, but tbh, I wasn't really paying that much attention), but the table was set and dinner was had.  After dinner, DH's dad had a little chat with ASS about helping out around the house and that's when ASS lost it.  Called his grandfather a few choice names, threw his crap in his car and took off.

So, apparently, he will be living in the 'hood now. 

After DH told me the story, I just looked at him and said, "well, he IS his mother's child."