Pleasant family Sunday
September 20, 2009 / 2:08 p.m.
This is how things go in my family, all the time.
I'm at home taking it easy just now. Mom calls up, I guess because we have plans to have dinner tonight and need to go over what I'm gonna bring, what time I should come over, etc.
Somehow the conversation turns to whether or not I'm stopping by my dad's house today to check on my grandma, who's been alone at his house all weekend. How this is her business (being that she hasn't seen my dad's mom in years), or why she cares, I don't really know.
Then she, breathlessly, goes, 'I KNOW! I can go WITH YOU... I haven't seen her for so long! Probably in a least a few years! What do you think!?'
What do I think about you having any contact with someone who was so bitter with you for having the gall to leave her son that she's spent 20+ years treating her grandsons like absolute garbage because she has no other recourse to get back at you? How do i feel about you visiting someone who is so vindictive and petty and offensive (towards you... and me), simply because she's never been able to get her revenge on you in the first person, and someone who's so low on the 'emotionally supportive' scale that measurements can't even describe it?
Oh, yeah, I want to go over there with you and say hi to her. Oh, I really do.
But, of course, I can't say that to her... so i just say I don't want to, and she can go over there by herself if she wants. I don't want to hurt her feelings and clue her in on the true reason I'm less than excited by the possibility. I don't like making people feel like shit, and I actually spend a good deal of energy thinking of ways to avoid having to do that if it's a possibility, actually.
So I just repeat, again, that I don't feel like going (because she never let's stuff go when people politely say no... she just, instead, hears 'PLEASE ASK ME FIVE MORE TIMES' when people say no to her).
Anyway, after one more time... I say, 'Because it'll be awkward, okay? Is that enough for you? I don't wanna do it. Please let it go.'
And she fucking hangs up on me... no discussion of the time for our dinner, no nothing. I guess it's just off now, after that.
Wonderful way to spend my Sunday.