Blow Off Your Folks!
The cheapest option for handling “family get-togethers”
is to tell them all to buzz off. No matter how many delicate feelings get spit
on, life continues, and you’re done with it.
No fighting traffic. No airport gropings or naked
x-rays. No hypocritical pretending to be nice to obnoxious in-laws, outlaws, or
parents. No kitchen pseudo-catastrophes, life-threatening hang-nails, or
ancient aunts recalling hip-replacement minutia. No angry drunk uncles,
brawling brothers, or cat-scratch sisters. Stay home and relax.
If you don’t have the gas money, don’t spend it.
If you hate going, don’t.
Which is worse: to go, hate it, and pretend otherwise?
Or make up an excuse, and skip it? Both are dishonest, so spare yourself, and
save money and sanity. Your own snot-nosed kids are always a good excuse. “They
all have a cold, we don’t want any of you all to get it,” like you are doing
everyone a favor. Chances are, the brats don’t want to go either--all they want
to do is play video games, forever.
A common womb does not guarantee friendship among
offspring. The opposite just as likely, after years of fighting for too-busy mom’s
scraps of attention.
Through the years,
some Moms get weird, angrily religious, and frightened by everything. Some Dads
get cranky, opinionated, and judgmental. There are reasons none of you visit
364 days a year. So what?
Frosty got fingered.
If your misguided conscience forces you to go anyway,
“forget” to bring food. Instead, eat relatives’ food, for free, to defray your
gas costs. Mostly just smile and nod.
Family reunions are not the time to convince
ex-Sergeant Uncle Christian Cannon that bombing goat-herders on the other side
of the world is cold blooded murder. Let him simultaneously believe thou shalt
and shalt not kill. Let him wonder why his head thus aches.
Nor is it time to convince Aunt Girth to put her
goopy-eyed poodle “to sleep.” That poodle may be the only thing left that can
stand to be around her full time.
Don’t bother trying to get your scabby gap-toothed
cousin to quit hitting the meth pipe, either. It may be the only shred of
pseudo-joy in his or her broke-down trailer-park minimum-wage no-health-care subsistence.
Never discuss, with anyone, which gang of criminals
should be running the country. (For the record: none.)
Christians, Jews, and Muslims should not try to convert
the atheists, or each other. And atheists, keep your ass-holiness. You can’t
turn a “Packers” fan into a “Steelers” fan, and both are certain that American
Football is Almighty God. Unbelief is Un-American!
At mealtime, bow your head and pretend to be serious
during “family prayer,” the food “blessing,” “grace,” whatever your clan calls
the little pre-meal pep talk with the invisible super-being. There is nothing
wrong with being thankful, for free food especially. Leave with several
pre-molded plastic containers of leftovers, if it was any good.
The old book that suggests we not murder each other,
also suggests we honor our parents. It does not insist that we love them,
however, and our siblings are not mentioned. If you do get along, great. If
not, just as great. Nod and smile.
Your family is who you decide it is. Assemble your own
tribe. Or sit home and read a book. It doesn’t matter.
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