My husband accepted an invitation from his sister to spend the 4th of July at her “house”. (By “house” she means crappy rathole apartment with rusting stairs and ankle deep in cat dander.) What we would be doing, instead of spending time in our lovely, spacious, flower-ringed back yard, and relatively dander free, if badly decorated by the previous owners, house, is likely be cooped up in her tiny apartment, because it’s supposed to rain this weekend. With four adults, a teenager, three school-age kids, a baby, and four or ten or however many frickin’ cats they have. She’s going to serve that weird “meat” that they buy on the internet. I don’t know what the hell it is. It LOOKS like meat, but the texture is like… I don’t fuckin’ know. Not meat.
I don’t want to go. My husband doesn’t really want to go either, but he feels like he has to come up with a “good enough reason”. I said, “Well, for once my asthma is actually controlled-- I’ve used my rescue inhaler maybe twice in the past three months. Spending all day breathing in loads of cat dander, which I’m highly allergic to, is going to send that all to hell! I think that’s plenty good enough reason!” Also, my sister-in-law and I are getting along now. This is VERY difficult because she’s, well… a nasty passive-aggressive self-righteous bitch with a huge ego who will take everything that’s not nailed down. Nearly everything she says is some sort of veiled insult, or a very thinly veiled reference to how superior she thinks she is to all of us. All just barely indirect enough that if you call her on it, she can deny it. Or rather, she can justify it to herself, anyone with half a brain is completely unconvinced. (Her husband, the former junkie, has the same personality, only slightly worse.) It’s not just me that thinks this-- nearly all of my husband’s friends have told him he really just ought to cut his sisters out of his life. Thank OG that she’s moving back to the South in December. The other sister, who was more overtly nice but apparently more back-stabbing, already has moved back to the South. She finally dumped her alcoholic ex-husband, divorced him, got married to her childhood sweetheart, and is expecting a baby. She got a good life and doesn’t feel like meddling in ours anymore, I guess. Or, it might be that all the “back-stabbing” was just the middle sister (Mistress of the Cat Dander Pit) causing trouble. Of course, M. of the CDP is moving back to the South to cozy up to dear old Dad and get him to leave her his house when he dies. I feel sorry for their stepmother if she survives their dad and gets the house, with M. of the CDP after it.) Anyway, my getting along with his sister is largely dependant on me not having to spend more than a few hours at a time with her.
I’ve made up my mind I’m not going to go. I think my husband should just tell her the truth-- spending time in all that cat dander is just plain bad for my health. That’s completely true. In the interests of keeping the peace, we can omit the “Plus, you’re a total bitch!” part. He doesn’t want to go, really, and I don’t care if he blames it all on me. I only tolerate the Mistress of the Cat Dander Pit to make him happy, anyway. I could give a flying fuck if she’s pissed off at me.
