Tell me about your parasitic, self-centered family member and I’ll tell you about mine

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
41

I had an almost SIL that was the laziest bitch I’ve ever met. Every meal or occasion at my in laws house, she would plop herself down and not budge. She would let other people serve her, clear her plates, bring her drinks, offer her treats.

She is in no way disabled. Finally, I had enough and told my MIL (who would complain bitterly when SIL wasn’t around) that she needed to start asking for help. She agreed, so we (I do about half the cooking at the house for big functions, more for many, and less for some) started asking SIL to help with certain things. She would just leave the room.

When I was 9 months pregnant and on modified bed rest, I sat at the kitchen table slicing things which was more than SIL contributed.

Fortunately, for everyone, BIL dumped her ass. I mean for Pete’s sake - if that how she acts while she’s still on the campaign trail, what would she be like if she was elected?!?!

42

No kidding. Morbo’s link to his brother’s last visit is a SDMB classic that must not be missed. Holy Moly. My favorite line was this by one poster:

" And you might have the cats checked for penetration, because I don’t think I’d put anything past this turd."

43

Hmmm. When I was a kid we would often have our holiday get-togethers at my grandmother’s house: the kind of tiny, two-bedroom “starter home” that widowed grandmothers often have. The kids would play, the men would talk or watch sports on TV, and the women would help in the kitchen (and talk non-stop). I can’t remember whether everybody brought a dish to pass. I don’t think so, although probably somebody brought pie from Bakers Square (Poppin’ Fresh in those days).

Anyway, more people in the kitchen/dining room would not have been welcome – no room! Every movement would have to have been carefully negotiated between bodies, furniture, and doorways – and look out for the kid suddenly appearing around a corner! No, really – why don’t you sit down out of the way somewhere, and we’ll call you when it’s time to eat.

Sorry, I don’t have any awful Thanksgiving (or Christmas) stories to share. My family is just that boring. :smiley:

44

Y’all have just described my father in his own house! We had Thanksgiving at his house on Sunday, since he and his GF were in New England the week prior. She cooked everything - turkey, mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes, turnips, beets, (yes she has a thing for root vegetables) green beans, rolls, gravy, two kinds of pie … you get the picture. My dad carved the turkey. After we ate, he didn’t even clear his own plate, and she washed all the dishes herself, while we were still there. (Yes, we offered to help; she rebuffed.)

45

That’s the good part - he goes into the loony bin for a rest break and my parents get the kids like we want all along. He comes out and pitches a fit and gets them back. Repeat ad nauseum.

I’ve told everybody that if he goes and kills himself on my wedding day we will all pretend we didn’t hear the news until the next day.

ETA - the “good” isn’t sarcastic - it’s wonderful that my parents get the kids when he pulls this crap. That’s where they ought to be.

46

I’ll add my 2 cents, my aunt, affectionately :rolleyes: called the ‘beached whale’.

Almost 60, lived in the same room since she was born. One of 4 sisters and the only one still living at home.

My grandparents are getting old, my grandmother can barely walk, arthritis and all, had to retire at 55, because her hands just couldn’t do the job anymore. Gramps is on the way out and has to have a nurse come in to help him shower.

Beached whale, she’s pays a bit, but she won’t clean. She’s filled the house with garbage from QVC.

My mom and another aunt go over and clean, and the beached whale won’t help, just tells them what to clean, screaming of course, rolling around on her bed like a beached whale.

I was back home a bit ago and there was a many day power outage. Gramps was nice and warm in the basement by the wood stove, but gramma was freezing upstairs. My fat aunt couldn’t be bothered to light the upstairs wood stove, but she could call my mom and bitch about how cold it was. So we went over, I brought wood up, cleaned the stove, made sure the chimney and everything was clear, even brought tea and homemade chicken soup (made on the pot belly stove).

Is she happy that its warm? no… She has to bitch that “It Stinks!!!”. Tough shit, then fucking freeze!!! Couldn’t even be bothered to keep the stove going to keep my 84 year old grandmother warm.

Called my mother to bring her tea, which she could make easily if she kept the stove going or went down stairs to the wood stove in the basement… OR walked across the street to the neighbors who graciously offered their house since they had stoves going everywhere. Nope, couldn’t go into the basement because its “dirty”. Couldn’t use the stove upstairs because “it stinks!!” and wouldn’t waddle her lazy ass across the street because she didn’t want to get her shoes dirty (she has at least 400 pairs). Couldn’t drive to get tea or coffee because there was a tree down blocking off one way out of the house, the other way out was clear, but she “doesn’t like to go that way”.

Just useless.

47

My cousin and his wife, the Zombies. They’re addicted to God knows what now. He’s a lanky, blank eyed idiot and his wife looks like she tried to claw her face off. I need to sum this up because it’s been year after year of check fraud, three crashed cars, jail stints, rehab trips, credit card fraud, leeching off both of their parents and my personal favorite, strong arming my aunt for money. We’ve got my aunt under our family wing and fortunately I don’t have to make nice at the holiday dinner with them anymore. I refused. But at least they have a handful of kids they can screw up.

48

My relative isn’t nearly as bad as others mentioned but she drives me insane. My mom has had some mental health issues over the past few years which have segued into grandiosity and the ability to delude herself into believing whatever she wants regardless of anything anyone else says.

My mother gave me christmas dishes. Which sounds like it might be a nice thing if I’d ever wanted any. She bought them at an estate sale from the daughter of the deceased friend. According to my sister she was throwing money around, acting lady bountiful, showing off a little, as she is wont to do these days. My sister, knowing my mom, told her before buying them that no one in the family would want them. My mom told her that she was just buying them to help out the family and would donate them somewhere later.

She offered them to me a few weeks ago, saying she “knew they were perfect for you”. I told her I wouldn’t have a use for them, had no where to store them, but thank you for the thought. She was very disappointed in my failure to appreciate this wonderful gift. Then she called me again, offering them because “they’re really you”. I reiterated that I really had never wanted xmas dishes, would never use them, and couldn’t store them. Again I heard about my inability to recognize the “opportunity” I was offered. Then she offered them to my sister, telling her that she’d bought them especially for her, who basically repeated what I said. On thanksgiving she again (separately) offered them to my sister and me, emphasizing how much we each needed these dishes, how wonderful they were, etc. We both (separately) politely declined, much to her sad dismay at our blindness to the wonder of this gift. After dinner she insisted that my sister, myself & a good friend of both of ours who was sharing thanksgiving with us come see them again. She insisted that all of us (encluding our friend) share the gift of dishes which she will store at her house. Don’t ask me how we’d share a set of dishes you can only use once a year - we’d each get a turn every fourth year? She presented it as a big extravagant surprise, not mentioning the fact that my sister & I had turned her down, because she knew we wouldn’t call her on it there and embarrass our friend.

While I hate the manipulation I decided (as did my sister) to let it go. She is old and mentally fragile and it did make her (smugly) happy.
The kicker? Yesterday the boxes of dishes (set of 16 plus serving pieces) was sitting on my porch when I got home from work. A note attatched explained how she doesn’t have room to store them and she’s sure I’ll enjoy keeping them at my house. She’s sincere.

49

Donate those bad boys. “That’s what you said you intended to do with them, and I don’t have room.”

Imagine that.

Some of these stories make me think of my sister’s brother in law. Her hubby is an okay guy most of the time - they have some issues, but he works and takes care of the boy and they are trying. His parents were always cold and distant, and for some reason put his older brother on some sort of pedestal and were blind to his behavior. My sister’s hubby actually learned karate and jui-jit-su to protect himself from his own brother, who actually held him down to shoot him up with heroin when he was young. Now BIL knows he’d get his ass kicked.

Anyway, miserable BIL knocked up some chick who moved to Alaska, and he showed back up at his folks claiming to have cancer of some sort. Um, right. After a couple years, the daughter was shipped down to him. This scummy slug starts doing meth and having scumbags staying at the house he rents from his parents (because nobody else would rent to him) while the 10 - 11 year old girl is in the house.

She’s had plenty of her own problems trying to deal with her grandmother, who actually has standards and rules and expectations, rather than her how father that she has idealized. Grandmother and my sister actually had conversations about how to pursue getting custody established and revoked from the BIL. Finally BIL got arrested on drug charges and spent about a year in jail.

Since then he’s back out. I’m not sure if he’s currently working or how things are, but he’s generally an obnoxious prick. Fortunately even his brother doesn’t want to be around him much, though they do try to look out for the daughter.

50

Sledgehammer them while in the box, leave the remains on her porch in the dead of night, and leave a note saying they made for great targets down at the range! Claim to have no knowledge that they were even at your residence.

51

As an aside, I’d resale shop those dishes.

My extended family is nice and normal, so no complaints there, but I am for some reason the family repository for unwanted items. The reason this is odd is I have kids, hate clutter, and have a very modern, clean-lined, spartan and tidy home. Kinda like this: Here

I do not need three boxes of delicate, ornate, hugely floral, dust collecting Capo-Di-Monte collector vases. Or boxes and boxes and boxes of old magazines (“Good Housekeeping”… from the 70’s!). Or mismatched china collections. Or beaded Victorian lamps. Or huge, ornate, gilded picture frames. Like this: this

I think I provide a valuable service for this junk. They think it’s too good to throw out, but not good enough to keep, so they give it to me and I magically make it go away. I am somewhat afraid someone will ask for some of it back one day, but I’ll’ just say I passed it on to someone else. Which I did. At the resale shop.

52

That is some Grade A cluelessness. I suppose part of the blame is on the woman for not keeping her mouth shut, but I’m guessing that she thought he already knew that.

Seconded.

Good plan. I think I would have just taken the dishes and donated them instead of having ongoing discussions about them.

53

This is what we did with most of my grandmother’s things when she was moving out of her house into a retirement home. She would ask if we wanted something and we would say yes and then either throw it out (most of her stuff was worn out or broken, depression era thinking) or give it away.

I only have one person in my family who is annoying me right now. My SIL refuses to figure out what she is doing for christmas. My MIL wants us all to be together. I need to figure out when I am going to see my side of the family, too, you know.

(This will end shortly, soon hubby and I are going to announce a gathering at our place and they can take it or leave it.)

54

I’ve been wrestling with myself about whether to open the Pandora’s Box that contains all the mortifying tales of my brother’s lovely wife, the Nutri Hag (hereafter referred to as the NH).
I finally decided - hey, what could it hurt? It’s only Pandora’s box, right?? There are many and I can only type so much, so bear with me. This could take all year.

The most recent example of her bone-deep douchery was unveiled for my dad’s 90th birthday.
She is notoriously, embarrassingly cheap, and will do anything to avoid paying in any given situation. In fact, getting someone else to pay for something is a standard goal, and something she will gloat about later. Our oldest and dearest family friends, folks of genteel southern manners, once told my father that they would prefer not to be invited to events where she’d be present, because she had cornered them in the parking lot at another event for my father and tried to get them to agree to foot the bill for him. She also thinks my father - let’s call him Erroll - is made of money.
Ok, so now you have an idea of her charming personality. Fast forward to dad’s 90th birthday.

First, she made my brother call me to request another venue, because the restaurant dad likes is “too expensive”. Ok, fine, whatever. There is some whingeing about their “money problems”, (which I don’t think can be too bad between his very good state pension, their long paid off mortgage and her “renowned” nutritional counseling business which probably brings in, oh, I don’t know, three or four thousand dollars a year at least!)

So the new venue is chosen, due to cheapness. As everyone is seated, the NH hungrily eyes the bar menu. She giddily announces that she is thinking of getting herself an expensive single malt scotch! Exciting! Mother may I? Titter!! She finally decides, having made the waiter stand there for five minutes listening to her embarrassing 60 year old woman acting like a 12 year old routine.
The NH: “I’m going to get the Glenlivet! Because Erroll is worth it!!”

I’m not the only one with shooting the WTF BITCH stink eye at the table. So you’re ordering yourself a $12.00 scotch because “he’s worth it!” Talk about “unclear on the concept”.
No offer to buy Erroll one, nope.

When the bill comes, guess who rips it out of the server’s hand? That’s right, the NH. Not because she is having some uncharactaristic surge of generosity, no no. It’s so she can whip out her little pink flashlight at the table and tally up their portion of the bill down to the penny.
Then she has the gall to pass the bill and the special flashlight to my learning disabled sister…as if she might be able to make some sense out of such a thing. Really? You have to embarrass her too?
I lost patience at that point and just grabbed it, brought out a card, and said “We don’t really have to nickel and dime everyone right at the table, do we? Good, I didn’t think so.”
My dad was mortified. Way to really keep a celebratory mood, dear. Make sure you don’t have to pay a nickel towards anything for dear old dad.

Good Christ, I hope I don’t have to be around her at the next giant commercial spending orgy holiday.

55

It’s nice work if you can get it. :slight_smile: