Family Christmas fail.........already

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

So, I should be getting ready to go to the airport instead of starting threads but…

My extended family has planned a big family Christmas. My 2 uncles have been living with my cousin in Florida ( because of financial circumstances ) and she invited me, my mom, niece and nephew for a visit, thinking that it would be a good opportunity for everyone to get together.

I don’t think my uncles were on board with this…first it was “WE don’t have enough room” (like it’s THEIR home in any sense of the word), so my family and I booked hotel rooms. Then it was NO gifts, NO ONE has enough money for gift-giving ( speak for yourself ).

OK, so now the trip is on and my uncles have been saved of what is apparently the incredibly onerous financial burden of buying me a $10 pair of bedroom slippers and putting them in a box.

Last night my phone rings ( Its an old phone in my office associated with a work phone number I haven’t used in 10 years, I keep it connected because it’s handy for when I have to give a phone number to a company that will probably use it for telemarketing, it’s the phone version of a “spamtrap” mailbox).The machine connected to this phone has the default generic message, nothing with my name or voice. Please note I have given my uncles my real phone number many times over the years.

It’s my uncle…telling me that they just had a huge fight with my cousin and they were never going back there so I should call them before I “wasted my time” coming down ( like I would EVER consider a trip to warm climate with beaches a waste of time)…and I should call them back because if I didn’t they’d take this to the next level by calling my mom and it would probably give her a stroke and I wouldn’t want to be responsible for that would I.

So I called my cousin, who is actually a friend ( unlike my uncles, whom I barely tolerate) and get her side of the story. We were kind of like…screw them, they’ll come around and if they don’t so what…we finalized our plans for my airport pickup and discussed plans for this evening. I decided I would pretend I never heard their message, that’s what they get for not keeping up my contact info.

The fight was over their 135 pound (NOT A TYPO) dog that they had promised my cousin they’d kennel. But every time she followed up it was that they were too poor to afford the kennel (hint, hint ) It finally came to a head when her homeowners association hit her with a violation ( they have a weight limit for dogs ) and they told my cousin that it was HER problem.

I always figured that this trip would end badly ( I frankly suspected that my uncles would make one too many political snarks based on the Faux News addiction and I would punch one of them ) but I really didn’t expect it to go completely downhill before the week started.

So, my rant before I leave…probably bad form to post when I can’t respond back right away but I’ll catch up within 24 hours.

Wish me luck.

2

Wow, good times. Seems like it would be better for you if the uncles did, in fact, leave in a huff, so you could just enjoy time with the rest of your family.

At any rate, good luck!

3

What kind of fucked up HOA goes around weighing dogs?

You know who else weighed dogs?

4

Uh, my vet?

5

I’m not getting the fail part. You’re going to a sunny clime in the middle of winter to hang with your cool cousin and there’s little chance some assholic uncles will be there? Sounds like a win to me!

6

May still be a fail. I suspect the uncles will forgive the niece just in time for Christmas Dinner.

If not, enjoy!

7

Agreed. Somehow I don’t think the uncles are going away quietly.

Even so, I’d still go and find a way to have fun, yet steer clear of the BS.

8

Stalin!

9

Cruella DeVille?

10

Sounds like a movie to me.

11

Now that I’m here, that looks like a distinct possibility.

Apparently the uncles came back today and moved their stuff out. My Mom called them and told them to stop acting like they were two year old children but they still wouldn’t reconcile.

Anyway, my official position is that my cousin invited me to spend Christmas with her and it matters not a bit to me if Rob and Barry show up. Unofficially I really really hope they don’t.

My cousin has exhibited a lot more restraint with them than I would be capable of. She took them to her church on Sunday and the sermon was about the school shooting tragedy. They walked out in the middle of the sermon and later went on a rant about how her minister should care more about all the unborn babies that were aborted each year instead of a few dozen child shooting victims.

I would’ve kicked them out then.

Here’s hoping they stay away…Christmas might be saved after all

12

I think the weight restriction is 40 pounds and their dog weighs 135 pounds. I don’t think anyone had to weigh it.

This 135 pound dog is a BIG animal, another reason I hope they don’t come back.

13

A 135 pound dog is a whole person’s worth of space! What a huge imposition on top of two extra people staying in someone’s home. Ann Hedonia, your cousin is a saint.

Now there’s space for you to stay at the house? It might be a good way to keep uncles from coming back at least for the week. Sound like a coupla huge tools. Hope your holiday goes well.

14

Is one of the uncles her father? (If I missed something in one of your posts, I apologize.) If that’s not even the case, she gets moved up from sainthood to archangel-dom for putting up with this stuff.

I do feel a bit sorry for the dog, though.

15

That’s not the point. Cousin chose to live there and those are the rules. The Uncles have no business doing anything but complying and being incredibly thankful.

16

Sounds like a Christmas miracle! Have fun on the beaches!

17

The update

Yeah, my cousin is going to write a screenplay.

The uncles never forgave my cousin, they still think it was “unfair” of her to make them confine the 150 pound ( I understated the weight previously ) St Bernard to her porch and the guest room, they thought their precious pup should be allowed the run of the rest of her small condo. They expected my family to be on their side because they also traveled with a dog but we thought the “dog rules” were very reasonable.

We thought the timing on the fight was interesting and probably designed so they didn’t have to contribute financially to Christmas dinner and sightseeing activities.

I saw them once, the first thing they did was ask me for $5000. This was for 1st last and security on a house ( that they couldn’t afford ) they were intending on renting. My cousin says they could’ve found something much cheaper. We never found out where they were staying after they left her house – they were very secretive - maybe they were slepping in the car ( with the 150 pound dog, HA ). Of course I said no on the 5K. I might have lent them a much smaller amount if they had asked nicely but it seemed to be 5K or nothing. My uncle complained that no one in his family “liked” him because we didn’t have money to give him…if that is their standard then they have hated my guts my whole life so who cares.

Despite the fact that Barry said he would take any job to make money when he moved in with my cousin, once they were settled he got more selective. She got him some interviews but he wasn’t interested, he had a better plan. He is now an independent insurance agent selling Aflac. This after he lost his life saving because

  1. someone convinced him he could be a real estate agent and sell houses for friends and family all over the country and he threw a whole bunch of money into marketing this idea.
  2. When this didn’t work out, the same person that got him into real estate convinced him to become an HerbaLife salesperson which is one of many MLM scams out there. according to him he lost 75K over the two ventures

So, now he has jumped feet first into the same situation by falling for the Aflac thing, a quick google shows that Aflac actively recruits anyone with a pulse to become an independent agent at their own expense, of course. It doesn’t work out for 98% of them, yet Barry, with NO money and NO savings is going to get rich doing this…“all I have to do is make 10 appointments a week to make 100K a year”…yeah right.

Other highlights from the script.

  1. I was sort of primed for some political wrangling, my progressive sentiments vs their right wing scree. I was thwarted constantly, the only rant I heard from Rob and Barry was one on how Bush ran up the national debt with I agreed with wholeheartedly and my Republican brother was stuck on how badly Romney treated his dog.

  2. I ended up getting gifts for everyone ( I LIKE giving gifts ). I did not buy anything for Rob and Barry but I made up “gift baskets” from the hotel amenities ( A coffee cup filled with shampoo, soaps and mouthwash, and some coffee and tea bundled with a coffee cup holder ). This goes back to the Christmas were they wrapped up some tea they had gotten as in a hotel room and gave it to me as a gift.

  3. I pointed out to my Mom that the only reason Barry had made our hotel reservations on his credit card ( we transfered the rooms to our cards on arrival ) was that he got a huge amount of “points” on his preferred traveler account with that chain, which also explained why he was so insistent on us using that hotel. Mom got so pissed she opened her own account and made a fuss until the points were transferred to her new account.

  4. Their was nameless adult who was so sick of it all that she engaged in some recreational drug use with her twenty-something nieces and nephews, with much giggling and amusement involved

  5. My cousin kept drunk dialing my mother late at night to rant about Rob and Barry, Mom is a recovered alchoholic with a Carrie Nation complex who was the LAST person in the family that she should’ve called with her rants but she persisted.

Now we just have to put it together.

Best part was I had some genuine fun when I was out with my brother and niece and nephew…my nephew has become an adult overnight and he’s smart and interesting and a good conversationalist. The time the 4 of us spent together qualifies as the best time I’ve had in years, we all have the same quirky sense of humor that no one else gets.

18

Good heavens. I think the most obstreporous my family ever gets is when there’s disagreement at the level of quality at which adulterating whiskey with soda is a sin. I’m glad you had a good time regardless!

19

Great reading material for a Friday afternoon: very entertaining!

I’m glad everything (sort of) worked out in the long run.

20

Wow. I feel like I should have a scorecard going.

Who do you think will make it to the playoffs next year?