Alternate suggestion - donate a sum to a charity you would like to support in her name 
Tragically, yes. See, my mother is a very…determined woman. One of the things she’s determined about is that I have a relationship with my brother and his family (“But he’s your BROTHER and it’s CHRISTMAS!”). I only spend Christmas and some birthdays with them, so to cut out any more, especially Christmas, would result in a nagging, guilt-trippy shitstorm in which my only surcease would be to jab myself in the jugular with a shrimp fork.
What’s funny is that despite them, I still actually love Christmas.
Like the Human Fund? 
Or alternatively, a charity she would loathe, like The Victory Fund
Now you’re getting the hang of Retaliatory Passive Aggressiveness. 
Better yet, return last year’s picture “present” to them within that frame. 
Is there any way you can discourage your mom from pushing this on you? Like insisting on a retaliatory blow-by-blow recounting to her of all the jerkass shit they pulled in a long phone call the following day, and then a recounting of it again the next time the guilt trip comes around? Maybe a “why do you insist on making my Christmas miserable, you know I love it so…” counter-guilt trip? Because really, I can speak to the utter joy that is not seeing jerks at Christmas, and it does much to lighten the spirit. Yeah, I know, most moms have expert guilt trip powers…
Met Mr. Horseshoe on our lunch breaks. We wanted Tex-Mex, so he got some tacos at a drive-through and I decided what the hell and asked for chips and queso. Wasn’t till some digging in the bag later that we discover that I had been given: queso. Just. Queso.
I was wondering if the half a bag of tortilla chips I had stashed at my desk was old enough to have gone stale. Turns out, it has.
(Mini 1st-world problem, I know. Couldn’t find the other thread.)
Generally angry about ignorant people.
My sister told me she got racially abused by some white van man. He apparently couldn’t make up his mind what race she was, so shouted slurs aimed at both Asians and South East Asians at her. Swing and a miss buddy.
Then I overheard one of my patients describe me using a racist epithet.
Then another patient told me, in passing, that “I didn’t think they let people like you become doctors”
:mad:
Before clarifying it with " I mean dwarfs, not foreigners".
:mad::(:eek::smack:
- I’m short, I’m not that short.
- I’m not actually foreign.
Seriously people, if you can’t say anything nice, don’t say anything at all.
With a name like that, how am I going to say no?
I’m a huge Venture Bros fan
Appointment already made.
On the more positive side, my appetite came roaring back today.
Oh, but this is the pit, right?
FUCK YOU MORONS!!! There’s snow on the ground again. Remember last year and every year before that? Remember how poorly it works to try to pull out in front of people like you do when it’s summer? Stop fucking doing it.
Actually, it’s been my experience that cats LOVE crinkly things. So maybe you ought to get rid of that tree skirt. Generally cats hate aluminum foil, so you might try a tree skirt out of that (I know it crinkles but apparently they hate how it feels on their feet).
I can give it a try, at least. If not for this year, then maybe for next year. All this shit piling up has got to count for something.
OK, but was in queso en lonchas, queso americano, queso brie, queso emmental, queso parmesano, queso de cabra?
Yeah, I know, I know, it’s a different language… but seriously, what kind of queso is that queso supposed to be?
Yellow-orange cheese dip, I suspect. Probably with some kind of chopped spicy chile like poblano mixed in, or maybe a bit of salsa roja.
And… it’s cold season. The wet weather has kept the sprog indoors, along with every other kid at his school, all but guaranteeing that the kids will get sick and stay sick until it warms up enough to go outside again.
So he’s home with a monster cough that keeps him up at night and makes him throw up because he’s got his father’s overactive gag reflex. It’s the kind of cough that hurts because it’s coming from deep in his chest. He’s not whining, though, which helps.
Read this: “Well, I can easily take two weeks off work around Christmas because nothing’s going on, really. And since normally the people I really want to see are spread across six states plus Canada (and I currently live in Germany), but they will all fortuitously be within a 150-mile radius of each other on Christmas, and every last one of them will have some time off work, it makes sense for me to spend 10 hours on a plane to fly back around Christmas, rather than, I don’t know, the middle of March. Plus, I haven’t seen my sister since June, and the 9-hour time difference and her insane work schedule makes it hard to find time to even talk to her, I’d like to, you know, see her. And this is the first Christmas since my grandmother passed away, and my mom said to me that it would really, really mean a lot to her if both her daughters could be at the Big Family Gathering in light of that.”
Now read this: “I celebrate Christmas!”
Are those two conveying the same ideas? I didn’t think they were but apparently they are not.
(Also, uh, you claim it’s not a Christmas party but a generic winter semi-formal. But you put up Christmas decorations, played Christmas music, people put on skits in a game of “Guess the Christmas Movie”, put a Christmas tree on the invitation, and served pork as one of the main dishes, so this Jew ain’t buying it.) (In all fairness, the description of the music, decor, and skits is second-hand as I was not there. But still.)
Awww. You’ll always be foreign to me, honey.
No, it was a short story in IASFM in the early to mid 80s. I think it was called “Hunger”, and I can’t remember the author. The main character was an artist who did paintings for the ceilings of the shopping mall, which (he eventually found out) were infused with the subliminal messages that made people consume more. Since he lived in the mall where he worked, he was subject to these messages all the time, and ate more and more and got fatter and fatter, until he found out what was going on and was outraged. Then he decided to hack the system and change the subliminal message to something else, something which made for a really interesting day at the mall.
Thank you, Chimera. Keep us posted, ok?
Is it too early to start my “I hate winter” rants? No? Good.
I hate winter. I hate snow, I hate ice, I hate the cold. It’s not even officially winter yet and I’m already sick of it. I took three inches of “less than an inch snow accumulation” off my car this morning and had to dodge idiots who don’t seem to realize that just because they can start ok with their 4WD truck they can’t stop any better than I can.
This sounds interesting, so I’m going to see if the Doper Collective Mind can dig up the author for me, okay?
Queso en taco bell, I’m guessing.
I walk A LOT, and I’ll add onto your winter rant all the people who don’t clean their sidewalks in winter. It’s the law, and it’s the right thing to do - just because YOU, Mr. Homeowner, don’t ever walk further than from your front door to your car doesn’t mean other people are as lazy as you are. It was great walking earlier this week - we had a light snow that was just enough to hide the icy spots underneath. WOOHOO! There go my feet again!
My brother died today. Dipshit the first is still a dipshit. I’ll have a contingent of redneck relatives to hold him while I beat the snot out of him. It will feel good.