  And now I will give in, and post a typical teen-complaining-about-his-parents post. Forgive me. I tried, really. Tonight, I walk out of my room to get a drink. I happen to notice that my brother is watching something decent, so I walk into the den and sit down.
As soon as I do, he turns it to some show about this guy who is mating a two-headed snake with a one-headed one. So I say, in not a particularly mean voice, "Can we watch the other show you just had it on? " My mother, having stopped complaining about a missed phone call that was, inexplicably, my fault, proceeds to yell at me for well over ten minutes.
I have yet to determine the reason or point of this. The yelling centered around my inherent selfishness and hurtful attitude. She cited the ample time I spend sequestered in my room. Why don't I spend time with my family, she asks. Aside from the ironic nature of the situation, what she does not seem to realize is that, due to the nature of my brother, spending time with my family consists of watching two-headed snakes mate on the television.
I have no interest in reaching out to people who consider television family time. They threaten constantly to take away my computer, on grounds that it gets too much use. The irony in this, is that for every hour I spend on my computer, my brother spends two in front of the television. What they refuse to acknowledge is that a rather small portion of the time I spend in my room is spent on the computer.
I spend most of it reading, or playing whatever instrument suits my fancy. But, again, were I to comply with the collective whim of my parents, it would be to sit on my butt in front of a television, as opposed to a computer. I have explained this time and time again, but always the threat is to take away my computer, not my brother's television.
And so, there I sit, yelled at for ten minutes, saying all the right things at all the right times, never disagreeing, never displaying any opinion, only utter compliance, because that is what gets her out of my room the fastest. Nothing I could say would be new as I've explained it all to her before, and so I assume that she is just too blinded by her own bias against me to recognize her own folly. God, I'm going to bed. 
