What will Cole Smithey do when Barb dies? - And then when Chris dies?

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Yes, the children of disfunctional homes often end up as such.
I'm not pardoning the behavior, but I am placing the blame on her. She nearly killed him with a gun as a child, is it shocking that he's a mean-spirited prick?
Cole is a shithead because he was raised by shitheads. Additional exposure to the family is not going to improve things.

I don't believe that shit just because Cole said it, because he's a Chandler. I'm sure he exaggerated that event because he is from a family of white trash liars.
 
Barb is an amoral harpy, and everything we have suggests his life with her was hell. She won't even tell him who his real father is and he can't figure it out because she was such a revolting whore back in the day.
I'm not saying he's not a pretentious ass with an absolutely insufferable ego, but it's hardly surprising there's no love lost between them, and Chris' infamy doesn't help.
Would you have kept in touch, knowing that even tangental contact with Chris means that a legion of obsessive internet people will investigate your every word? I wouldn't.
Barb can offer him nothing, has been a source of nothing but misery, and has already screwed her remaining son out of what little he has. That's a kind of person you leave in the past where she belongs.
I'm not defending what a prick he is, mind you, but it's at least half her fault, and I can't blame him for not giving a shit.

Don't get me wrong, Barb is a horrible human being, probably the worst of the entire Chandler household, so I can understand Cole not wanting anything to do with her as a person. But if I were him, I'd at least attend her funeral out of a sense of common decency, even if I did rightfully hate her.

If nothing else, it would give me a sense of closure.
 
As I said before in other threads, Cole would only show up shortly after the funeral to file something in Probate Court to see what he can get after the creditors order the house sold off to settle past liens.
 
I don't believe that shit just because Cole said it, because he's a Chandler. I'm sure he exaggerated that event because he is from a family of white trash liars.
A fair point, but it still doesn't address why he'd show. For Barb? The old bag is dead, him showing up isn't going to affect her one way or the other. For Chris? The only attempts at interaction have been Chris demanding money and telling him to look after Barb so he can go out looking for pussy. For the rest of the family? They all fucking hate her. For closure? He pretty much accomplished that by ignoring her for the last decade.
Everything we've seen suggests that he wants nothing to do with them and their incredibly dysfunctional mess of a life, and you can hardly fault him that. Showing up for the sake of decency implies a level of connection he quite clearly doesn't have.
I get the appeal for him to be the better person, I really do, but at a certain point Barb has to lie in her bed as she made it.
 
If nothing else, it would give me a sense of closure.

He already cut off contact with her years ago, how much more closure do you need? Shit, I wouldn't travel from NYC to bumfuck Virginia to attend the funeral of someone I hate either.
 
A fair point, but it still doesn't address why he'd show. For Barb? The old bag is dead, him showing up isn't going to affect her one way or the other. For Chris? The only attempts at interaction have been Chris demanding money and telling him to look after Barb so he can go out looking for pussy. For the rest of the family? They all fucking hate her. For closure? He pretty much accomplished that by ignoring her for the last decade.
Everything we've seen suggests that he wants nothing to do with them and their incredibly dysfunctional mess of a life, and you can hardly fault him that. Showing up for the sake of decency implies a level of connection he quite clearly doesn't have.
I get the appeal for him to be the better person, I really do, but at a certain point Barb has to lie in her bed as she made it.

I've shown up for funerals for people I didn't give a fuck about when they were alive at vastly greater inconvenience and expense.

Let's just face it, Cole is scum.
 
A fair point, but it still doesn't address why he'd show. For Barb? The old bag is dead, him showing up isn't going to affect her one way or the other. For Chris? The only attempts at interaction have been Chris demanding money and telling him to look after Barb so he can go out looking for pussy. For the rest of the family? They all fucking hate her. For closure? He pretty much accomplished that by ignoring her for the last decade.
Everything we've seen suggests that he wants nothing to do with them and their incredibly dysfunctional mess of a life, and you can hardly fault him that. Showing up for the sake of decency implies a level of connection he quite clearly doesn't have.
I get the appeal for him to be the better person, I really do, but at a certain point Barb has to lie in her bed as she made it.
Really though, I feel like even if he was bribed to come by some other family member, he still wouldn't go.

We all know he hates Barb and Chris (no idea about everyone else though, but I'm sure he dislikes them too). So really, why would he take time out "reviewing" and begging people to pay for bar tabs to see the corpse of a mother he wanted nothing to do with?
 
Really though, I feel like even if he was bribed to come by some other family member, he still wouldn't go.

We all know he hates Barb and Chris (no idea about everyone else though, but I'm sure he dislikes them too). So really, why would he take time out "reviewing" and begging people to pay for bar tabs to see the corpse of a mother he wanted nothing to do with?

He thinks he's better than they are.

He isn't.

He's garbage, too.
 
He thinks he's better than they are.

He isn't.

He's garbage, too.
Honesly, I'd reckon nearly none of Barb's relatives are any better than she, Chris or Cole are. The whole family just feels like they could be entitled dickbags.
 
I've shown up for funerals for people I didn't give a fuck about when they were alive at vastly greater inconvenience and expense.

Let's just face it, Cole is scum.
Good on you, but most wouldn't. I don't pretend to miss people after they're gone if they were trash in life. Leave the shit to be shit, no use standing in it.
There's a certain simplicity to simply staying out of someone's life after you've decided they're not healthy to be around. Showing back up is just going to be bringing up bad memories, dancing around awkward conversations about his abscence, and probably some big scene with Chris. And for what? To honor the memory of someone he neither wants to remember, nor has the slightest respect for?
Cole is indeed scum, but he's hardly obligated to go out of his way to honor his estranged nightmare of a mother and her weird kid simply out of some feigned sentimentality for a family he couldn't wait to get away from.

I don't show up to funerals unless I'm legitimately sad to be rid of you. There's a certain honesty in that. Cole coming out of begrudging obligation would create more problems than it'd help.
 
Funerals aren't for the dead person. They're for the people who are still alive.
 
What would Cole even do? Help a severely autistic adult man work out his mommy issues and confront the reality of death? We know Chris better than anyone, and not a one of us has ever got close to producing any meaningful progress from Chris. @Marvin has been banging his head at that wall for years, and he arguably knows him better than Barb does.
This is one of those ugly situations where there's no good answer, and introducing someone with nothing but spite for all parties involved will only make the situation all the more painful for Chris.
I hope Cole doesn't show. No good could come of it.
 
Fuck all.

If he turns up to the funeral, he faces being harangued repeatedly by Chris for tugboat supplements and a gauntlet of weens all shouting JULAY at the coffin and similar.

If he doesn't turn up and comments on it, he'll look like a turd.

So he does the only thing he can do. Carry on regardless.
 
Cole will reach out to Chris and inform him that Barb's debts and mortgage payments are too much for him to handle, and he should find new living arrangments.
Chris goes to Walmart.com and orders 150,000 helium balloons, a generator, and 300 hungry man dinners.
A month passes and the sheriff arrives to evict Chris from the house. He knocks on the door. Chris releases the balloons and 14 BLC rises. CURSE YE HA ME HA! Chris yells as the house floats away.
image.jpeg
 
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