As I was surfing the internet, a memory came flooding back. The Weekend from Hell. No, seriously, it was that bad.
This happened when I was fourteen. We moved from the big city out to an 80 acre farm out in the middle of nowhere (to me, anyway). It started on a Friday night; my brothers and I stayed at home while my parents went out to some crappy wedding reception which they ended up paying $50 a plate. They couldn't really afford to go out, but their friend really wanted them there. :/
While they were out, one of my uncles called the house asking for directions. No one had a fucking clue that he was coming. If my folks knew he was dropping by, they would not have gone out at all. I freaked out over directions. I was just a kid; why the hell would I be paying ANY attention to what road you get off on and such, much less have the ability to get him on the right path. I ended up giving him the wrong directions (wish it would've been on purpose).
The fun part was next: calling the parents. Yeah....Mom and Dad were super thrilled to hear this lovely bit of information. They knew I wouldn't invite him, but they were already angry about spending $100 for a crappy dinner at a reception for a friend of a friend. Plus, we were broke that weekend. At this point, I can't recall if my uncle showed up first or my parents. O_o Doesn't matter now, it was still rude and inconsiderate.
The uncle shows up with the wife, three kids AND their two dogs. Luckily, for the sake of everyone's remaining shreds of sanity, they slept in their camper.
The next morning, Mom and I went to the resort to clean cabins. When we got back, lo and behold, ANOTHER uncle shows up, with his four kids and another kid from his wife's side of the family. Counting my brothers and I, plus the three cousins from the night before, AND five more kids plus one...packet...of Kool-Aid...a complete Weekend from Hell!
Camper Uncle finally felt bad enough to go get us groceries. Yeah, that was nice of him, but advanced notice would be even nicer. I could tell that Mom was fit to be tied. She held it in as best as she could, but give the poor woman a break. The other uncle had a cabin in the area (hence, I'll call him Cabin Uncle), so no more people were sleeping there for the weekend. Sadly, it wasn't the only time relatives would drop by unannounced, but it was the worst time, given the financial dire straits we were in.
These were all Dad's siblings that were doing this crap. They all (well, almost all) lived back in the cities and apparent missed us enough to the point of treating our house like a damned resort. Which is funny, because the most time I would spend with these people is at the various holiday get-togethers. Even that was too much time with them for me....
Anyway, we did the family hang out crap during that time. I dealt with it, but I couldn't wait for them to leave. I dont know exactly what Mom and Dad said to these people afterwards, but I do know that from then on, they called first.
The moral is: have enough consideration to call ahead of time. If you don't, you'll be in for a rude awakening. If you drop by, don't be too upset if I'm not in the mood to entertain your dumb ass, much less let you stick around. People DO have lives and routines, you know. I could be at work, I could be on vacation, I could be having some amazing sex. Whatever I've got going on, don't expect me to drop what I'm doing just because we share a few bits of DNA.
Although I don't speak to a lot of them now, I'm still very lucky they don't have my street address. *shudders*
No comments:
Post a Comment