Family Matters

I am back. Man, I am not crazy about family. I do not mind my own, having grown up with it, it is the Devil I know. The Wife's family has become another matter.

The Wife's sister, husband and 3 of 5 children were in from Dayton. As is usual with holidays, the Wife is stressed. This has constantly led to fights that she will pick with me. I figure that I have a number of choices. I can rise to the bait, but that is not me (lack of control of my emotions--not the Madman's style--too cold for that); I can smack her upside the head (great idea as it does solve the problem once, but in her genes there is this inability to make the necessary connections between cause and effect, so I would really have to lay numerous beatings on her, and again, not the Madman's style); or I can let it be and know like the sun rising, it will recur because the Wife cannot see herself and her actions as others see them (she is very sympathetic but not very empathetic). I chose the last option, with full knowledge that she will never learn, as that takes a measure of reflection.

Anyway, her sister and family are in. Of course, they have to stay at my in laws condo. I mean, heaven forbid, they should stay in a hotel. They go to Israel and Utah quite frequently, but they cannot bear to pay for a hotel in Toronto. It is beneath them. Of course, they live like swine and treat others stuff like it is their own (with no respect or courtesy). Somebody is going to have to clean to make sure that the condo is showable as it is up for sale.

I meet all at the home on Saturday. The Wife has the bright idea of lending our car to them and it will be returned on Sunday. No real problem there. On Sunday, they are over for lunch. After lunch, we go to visit FIL. I get in our car and what do I find, a banana peel on the console in the cup holder. Now, eating a banana in the car is no big deal. Leaving the peel for somebody else to clean, when it is not your property, is a sign of discourtesy and disrespect. I, since nobody else in that family has the balls or brains, confront her. I make my displeasure known, in no uncertain terms. She has the nerve to try to spin it into a fight, where she is the victim and I am wrong for expecting, demanding, that she not treat my things like she is a swine.

I came close to cuffing her too. I got the old "don't sweat the small stuff" rationalization from her. This was he line of reasoning whenever she disrupted the order of her parents' home when she stayed there. I thought that if that is the case, I am going to take a dump on her living room carpet the next time we are in Dayton. She can then show me how to not sweat things.

Of course, given the dirt pit she calls a home, she would not notice the dump in the middle of the living room. I am telling you, she needs a repeated shot in the head so that message can sink in. This was never done by her family (too afraid to confront things and get outcomes that they would like--much easier to appease and eat a shit sandwich and complain to others about a lack of respect--forgetting or avoiding the fact that respect is earned and not just granted, and it is earned by action not speaking).

That pretty much sums up the expletive of the other day. They leave tomorrow so I do not have to deal with that or my whiny neice, who I may also strangle, if I have to hear her whine any more.

How are things by you? Drop me a line won't you? Ciao!