24 November 2011
474
R. Linda:
As you know, Tonya's sister and her husband invited themselves to our house for Thanksgiving. Well, all this unexpected guestitude (yeah, I made up a new word) had Tonya in a tizzy. Add to this, the neighbours on the hill gave her this sad story about being alone for the holiday, the two grown children making plans for elsewhere. SO soft-hearted Tonya invited them for dessert. And for her trouble, she got a phone call last night that the son's plans fell through and he'd be coming too . . . and maybe bringing a friend or friends? Poor Tonya!
"Where am I putting all these people?" She asked me, all wide-eyed with wonder.
I shrugged. I didn't know, but we would be outnumbered if this kept up. I told her I'd help her in any way I could. That seemed to make it better. "The more, the merrier, Tonya." I foolishly said, "As to Thanksgiving dinner, I'll do the cooking you do the entertaining." That way, I reckoned, I'd be free of making nice when I wasn't really feeling like it.
First, can I say a wee bit about manners? I be going to anyway. I was brought up that if I go to someone's home for dinner, I bring either a box of chocolates or a bottle of wine. If I was staying at someone's house for a few days, I do the same, but I also offer to take them out for breakfast, lunch or dinner. If they do not accept me paying for a meal, I offer to pay half or, at the very least, leave the tip. In me day of visiting relatives, I would always send a note of thanks and of course, on saying our farewells, I'd thank me host and hostess for their hospitality. And lastly, I never invite meself to someone's home, I wait for an invitation. I will not be impolite that someone has a life outside of mine, and you never know what's happening.
I was finding in America none of that seems to be the case. It seems dropping in unannounced, like you see in soap operas, is the way of it. You sit down, you chat your fool head off about YOU, and if you think about it, you might hurriedly pop in a question to the person whose home you have invaded, one of these: "And how are you?" But don't wait for an answer because you really don't care and plough on with the subject of yourself. Yes indeed. Then, if you are there at dinner, you sit yourself down and wait to be served, eat the food, and at the end, wait for the rest of the guests or host and hostess to clear the place. When they have finished washing the dishes, you sit there and tell them about your troubles from the other room, and THEN you get up. And I don't mean to get up to leave, no, no, forget they may be knackered from cooking a big unexpected guest meal and doing all those dishes, no, no, if they don't suggest a drink, YOU DO IT! Then, talk their heads off until they are both nodding off and just leave with a "See ya!" you don't need to thank them; after all, they had a whole evening of being graced with YOU.
IF you happen to be staying over for a few days, do tell them how you like your eggs before you come down to breakfast. If they decide they are too exhausted from the night before to cook breakfast and opt to go out, you go too and do not offer to pay for breakfast. THEY are, after all, YOUR host and hostess; it's the least they can do to entertain YOU. And please do not forget to let them know you wish to be driven around to see the sights. OH, and do not offer to pay for the petrol. It's THEIR motor, and you don't pay for the upkeep of that, so why pay for the petrol either?
Do walk into a shop and point out something you'd like to have. For example, say . . . wine glasses! Say to your hostess, "You know THOSE are spiffy and would look very nice in my dining room. I'd like to have them." When she says, "Oh?" jump in quickly and say, "If you want to get me those as a present for my birthday early, I will not object. You can mail them to me because if you gave them to me now, they'd surely break at the airport." OH YEAH!
And, as often happens in some of the finer stores up here, you see the 'customer banquet' of food laid out. It's a way to make customers feel like they should buy something. But not YOU. No, you load your plate up and peruse the aisles as you munch. And then fill up a few more times, and then when you are done, leave without a bye d' bye, the shopkeeper looking after you, her mouth hanging open, and you don't seem to see that. No, you instead criticise the food as you get back in the motor to go, God knows where and wistfully say to your host how well those wine glasses would look displayed on your table back home. SIGH, there is always Christmas. Of course, your hosts won't be able to show their faces in that shop again, so keep that in mind when no wine glasses arrive.
To me, acting like that is the height of rudeness and disrespect. But to some people, there is nothing wrong with it because it's YOU they are being honoured to have in their home, and THEY should show their appreciation for your WONDERFULLNESS (yes, another new word) by gracing your host's home with YOUR presence!.
So, for an example, let me put the above into play for you so you know how this works. The two freeloaders arrived last night. They wanted me to drive into Boston to pick them up. I suggested they rent a car, but they said, "You live up there. Could you get us a limo." It wasn't a question it was a demand. Get them the limo and pay for it. I don't think so. I found a limo service and sent the info. It isn't like these two people were out of work. To hear them talk, you'd find out in short order they travel extensively and, being "foodies," they go to expensive restaurants, so they are good at spending their money on themselves.
Now, since I was doing the cooking the following day and had to get up at the crack of dawn, I went to bed. I wasn't being rude, but truly, they arrived at almost midnight and then stayed up and told poor Tonya about all the fabulous places they've been and restaurants they've eaten in, it took until 2:30 before the poor dear came crawling to bed. I got up at 7:30, and who was already up? Yes, the uninvited and where was poor Tonya? Struggling to get herself out of bed to make THEM breakfast. That meant I was the entertainment until she could do that. Yes, YOU try to stuff a bird with 20 questions when you haven't had any coffee and are trying your damnest to be sociable when you aren't fully awake. Then, once you have that birdie in the oven, your wife shuffles in and pours the last cup of coffee BECAUSE she doesn't know the intruders have drunk almost all of it while flapping their jaws, watching yours truly try to stuff a turkey!
I be very particular about me morning ritual. I NEEDS ME CUP OF JOE FIRST THING OR GABRIEL BE A GLOOMY LAD! I had to wait for coffee, and as I got me cup, what happened? Intrusive hands are pouring a tenth cup for himself and asking HIS wife, not mine if she needs a topping off. I'd like to top something off!
Tonya had put some sweet rolls in the microwave and was making a quickie breakie so we could all get the hell out of her kitchen so the rest of the cooking could commence. Well, as we were eating the rolls, of which I took one, the intruders took two each. I realised HE was an authority on EVERYTHING. You say something, and he says, "Yeah, well," and off he goes with stats and crap on such intensely interesting subjects as The Mayan calendar and the end of the world (great subject for 8:30 in the morning), gamma rays of the sun threatening the earth, and how moose like to lick the minerals off the road, thus the mortality rate be higher for those moose that live near highways. I be like SERIOUSLY DUDE? Then I realised he looks at the same Discovery programmes as O'Hare. He looks at a LOT of telly he does. And you know how ludicrous all that sounds? And Tonya's sister hangs on every encyclopedic word he utters. Her favourite subject is Indie flicks.
"You learn so much about the culture by watching foreign films." And I was thinking why don't you take a trip and EXPERIENCE it instead of through a movie. You talk about all the places you've been -- why not? I was thinking to meself, I'd like to get up from this table and go order you a flight to Timbuktu. But no, I let the thought come and gooo.
When they decided to go out and "walk the grounds" (which made it seem like we lived on an estate), Tonya turned to me in question. I told her, "They probably have a tape measure and will see how much property we have." While they were out measuring the acreage, we got the rest of the meal going. I told Tonya I hoped she liked bald men because, most likely, by the end of this "invasion of me happy home" I would have torn every hair out of me head.
So they come in just as we are winding down the cooking and a few minutes out from serving to tell us they are going to take a shower and get "dressed" for dinner. Oh, to have the same luxury! No offer to help us with the dinner, no, none of that.
"And not even a box of candy or a bottle of wine," Tonya mutters. "At least HELP out."
There was nothing to be done but put dinner on hold until our two connoisseurs of the art of freebie freeloading came down, ready to chow down on a turkey dinner with all the trimmings.
And they did come down all glowing and shiny in their nice clothes, and they go in and look at the table and they sit down and . . . and wait. Oh yeah, no offer to bring anything in. While Tonya and I are alternately running in the dishes they are inhaling and saying, "That smells so yummy!" Well, you betcha!
When Tonya is just about to sit down, the sister asks if there is anything she can do? I wanted to say LEAVE would be a great idea, but I behaved. We got through dinner, except the gravy boat needed refilling, and HE handed it to me and said, "You need to top this off." Not, "I'll get more," or "PLEASE, can you get me some more," No, none of that was expected. Tonya and I exchanged glances, but off I went, suppressing the urge to pour hot gravy over his head.
While WE cleared the table, they sat there sipping wine. OUR wine. Not one bottle, but he held the empty up and shook it at me. "Refill?" Hahaha. Right, you just hold that bottle in the air and wave it at me, and I'll just pop off to our massive wine cellar and select a bottle of expensive champagne, and then I'll break out our costly Waterford crystal champagne glasses, and I'll yell out a toast. YOU two can clink the glasses hard together, breaking them over the expensive linen tablecloth and . . . If only I had all that stuff, I'd be able to afford a butler. Sigh. I know I've gotten anal on this stuff.
Once Tonya and I had the first load of four in the dishwasher, they decided no small talk they were going to take naps. So off they went. We stood there looking at each other, silently questioning, WHO DOES THAT? Come to your house, eat your food, drink your wine, and then nap. OK
"Look on the bright side, Tonya. We have at least two hours to ourselves to regain our sanity before we are bombarded again."
Here's the second part of this story you need to know about. Lois and our two neighbours on the hill rang us up a few days before to wish us a happy Thanksgiving. Now we know Lois is alone so reluctantly Tonya invited her (because you know Lois and I together equal trouble). Still, she decided to offset that with the other two neighbours, who told my soft-hearted wife that their two college grads would not be in the nest for dinner, and it was just the two of them. Well, we have a small abode, so to invite any more than we had would have been awkward as far as elbow room was concerned, SO Tonya asked them to dessert.
Between Tonya and I, we had baked two pumpkins, two pecans and one apple pie because her relatives eat a lot of pie. We had plenty because we were expecting company (as you know) for dessert. But Lois, on hearing what we had, offered to bake another pie. I was about to be pied to death. She told me she was making me a chocolate, bourbon pecan pie because it was me favourite. Well, never one to refuse a pie where it's been soused with drink, I said OK. Then I get a call, "Gabe, you don't mind if I bring that pie I made with a slice out, do you? I had to taste test it first." I thought, WHO DOES THAT? What could I say?
The old couple brought homemade biscotti, so we looked like a small bakery when everyone arrived. A bottle of Boddle's Gin and four bottles of tonic also arrived. Now, these are good people. You open your home, they bring some more party with them. Could find no fault, even with the missing pie slice. We also had another two couples we had invited to watch the football games (we asked them way back before we knew how much company we were having), and they arrived with a fine bottle of wine, eggnog and rum for drinks. Just an hour before the INVITED guests arrived, Lois called to tell me she may not make it because ever since she got the bourbon out, she'd been slugging back shots in between doses of Vicodin for her back. I was like, WHAT? You've been doing WHAT? She has a steel rod in her back, and she only just had surgery, and here she was guzzling bourbon with VICODIN. She said she read in some scientific journal that two shots of scotch or bourbon are the equivalent of a Vicodin pill. OK, but let's do both! I thought maybe I was missing something here. Perhaps I should be taking shots of Bushmills and popping a few ibuprofen to take the edge off.
She ended up arriving, and she was delightful. She actually behaved quite well, considering. She made her own gin and tonic (yes, she topped off the bourbon and Vicodin with THAT). In contrast, Tonya made rum and eggnog for a few, including the RELATIVES, who hungrily watched her pour the first two glasses they were grabbing before she mixed them so no one else would get any first. Kids, I tell ya! They act like kids. Then there were the rest of us who needed a straight scotch for so festive an atmosphere. Actually, it went well with all those extra "invited" guests. The "uninvited" ones were taken aback. We would have a gang of locals in when it was THEIR visit, and we were depriving ourselves of their engrossing conversation. Right. They didn't really know what to do; they both looked like deer caught in headlights, and I realised the problem was they couldn't lord it over the rest of the crowd because the crowd was too engaged in conversation of their own with EACH OTHER!
Oh yes, one asked another they hadn't seen for a while how such and such on the hill was coming along (some garden project). Another asked about children who had just graduated from college and lived far away from the parental home. Then someone else talked about Fred, the local gamekeeper, and how many pheasants he had put out this year. No one asked about indie flicks, food, travelling to places in the good old U.S.A. or, how long they were sponging, I mean staying, or what they did for a living. No there was no conversational opening for a "know it all" tirade on some stupid subject that none of us cared about, like the amount of Oscars swimming in Florida canals. When you can't hold court, what are you to do? Well, one sat in on a conversation, not saying a word because she had no clue and ended up staring blankly at the football game on the telly. The other one stood in the outer boundaries of a manly conversation on farming, listening or assuming to but not offering anything because . . . well. farming isn't precisely a Metropolitan subject now, is it?
Well, it's all over and done with. I said, "Let's make a deal and never do that again. Because to be quite honest with you, Tonya, though I love you dearly, I do not love your sister and her husband. I might think differently if they had shown some class, but for you and me to run around at their beck and call without any offer of assistance, be it in help or a box of chocolates or what have you, I, for one, cannot do this next year." And let me say the only reason they offered to clear dishes or help with anything is because they were told by one of our guests to at least pitch in. Otherwise, nothing like that would have taken place.
Oh, one last note. Lois told me that Tonya's sister's hubby "hates me" and that I hate him. Let me say hate is a strong word, and I never said that. He hardly talks to me, and when I talk, he looks like he's a million miles away thinking of something important because, obviously, what I have to say isn't. But I've never said a word. To hear that did not endear them.
And how did they leave us? Well, the limo arrived, and they both shot off to the loo before the long ride to Boston. He first, then her. Before they get in the limo, she whispers to me, "YOU'LL need to spray the bathroom because he really stunk it up. I had to go upstairs; it was so bad." NOW I ASK YOU: is that a parting conversation I won't forget? WHO DOES THAT? Both the deed and then telling me to do something about it? I was horrified. I muttered something to her about a can of Lysol under the sink, but she didn't offer to go in and clear the smell out; no, that was for ME to do.
WOW.
Gabe
Copyright © 2011 All rights reserved
R. Linda:
As you know, Tonya's sister and her husband invited themselves to our house for Thanksgiving. Well, all this unexpected guestitude (yeah, I made up a new word) had Tonya in a tizzy. Add to this, the neighbours on the hill gave her this sad story about being alone for the holiday, the two grown children making plans for elsewhere. SO soft-hearted Tonya invited them for dessert. And for her trouble, she got a phone call last night that the son's plans fell through and he'd be coming too . . . and maybe bringing a friend or friends? Poor Tonya!
"Where am I putting all these people?" She asked me, all wide-eyed with wonder.
I shrugged. I didn't know, but we would be outnumbered if this kept up. I told her I'd help her in any way I could. That seemed to make it better. "The more, the merrier, Tonya." I foolishly said, "As to Thanksgiving dinner, I'll do the cooking you do the entertaining." That way, I reckoned, I'd be free of making nice when I wasn't really feeling like it.
First, can I say a wee bit about manners? I be going to anyway. I was brought up that if I go to someone's home for dinner, I bring either a box of chocolates or a bottle of wine. If I was staying at someone's house for a few days, I do the same, but I also offer to take them out for breakfast, lunch or dinner. If they do not accept me paying for a meal, I offer to pay half or, at the very least, leave the tip. In me day of visiting relatives, I would always send a note of thanks and of course, on saying our farewells, I'd thank me host and hostess for their hospitality. And lastly, I never invite meself to someone's home, I wait for an invitation. I will not be impolite that someone has a life outside of mine, and you never know what's happening.
I was finding in America none of that seems to be the case. It seems dropping in unannounced, like you see in soap operas, is the way of it. You sit down, you chat your fool head off about YOU, and if you think about it, you might hurriedly pop in a question to the person whose home you have invaded, one of these: "And how are you?" But don't wait for an answer because you really don't care and plough on with the subject of yourself. Yes indeed. Then, if you are there at dinner, you sit yourself down and wait to be served, eat the food, and at the end, wait for the rest of the guests or host and hostess to clear the place. When they have finished washing the dishes, you sit there and tell them about your troubles from the other room, and THEN you get up. And I don't mean to get up to leave, no, no, forget they may be knackered from cooking a big unexpected guest meal and doing all those dishes, no, no, if they don't suggest a drink, YOU DO IT! Then, talk their heads off until they are both nodding off and just leave with a "See ya!" you don't need to thank them; after all, they had a whole evening of being graced with YOU.
IF you happen to be staying over for a few days, do tell them how you like your eggs before you come down to breakfast. If they decide they are too exhausted from the night before to cook breakfast and opt to go out, you go too and do not offer to pay for breakfast. THEY are, after all, YOUR host and hostess; it's the least they can do to entertain YOU. And please do not forget to let them know you wish to be driven around to see the sights. OH, and do not offer to pay for the petrol. It's THEIR motor, and you don't pay for the upkeep of that, so why pay for the petrol either?
Do walk into a shop and point out something you'd like to have. For example, say . . . wine glasses! Say to your hostess, "You know THOSE are spiffy and would look very nice in my dining room. I'd like to have them." When she says, "Oh?" jump in quickly and say, "If you want to get me those as a present for my birthday early, I will not object. You can mail them to me because if you gave them to me now, they'd surely break at the airport." OH YEAH!
And, as often happens in some of the finer stores up here, you see the 'customer banquet' of food laid out. It's a way to make customers feel like they should buy something. But not YOU. No, you load your plate up and peruse the aisles as you munch. And then fill up a few more times, and then when you are done, leave without a bye d' bye, the shopkeeper looking after you, her mouth hanging open, and you don't seem to see that. No, you instead criticise the food as you get back in the motor to go, God knows where and wistfully say to your host how well those wine glasses would look displayed on your table back home. SIGH, there is always Christmas. Of course, your hosts won't be able to show their faces in that shop again, so keep that in mind when no wine glasses arrive.
To me, acting like that is the height of rudeness and disrespect. But to some people, there is nothing wrong with it because it's YOU they are being honoured to have in their home, and THEY should show their appreciation for your WONDERFULLNESS (yes, another new word) by gracing your host's home with YOUR presence!.
So, for an example, let me put the above into play for you so you know how this works. The two freeloaders arrived last night. They wanted me to drive into Boston to pick them up. I suggested they rent a car, but they said, "You live up there. Could you get us a limo." It wasn't a question it was a demand. Get them the limo and pay for it. I don't think so. I found a limo service and sent the info. It isn't like these two people were out of work. To hear them talk, you'd find out in short order they travel extensively and, being "foodies," they go to expensive restaurants, so they are good at spending their money on themselves.
Now, since I was doing the cooking the following day and had to get up at the crack of dawn, I went to bed. I wasn't being rude, but truly, they arrived at almost midnight and then stayed up and told poor Tonya about all the fabulous places they've been and restaurants they've eaten in, it took until 2:30 before the poor dear came crawling to bed. I got up at 7:30, and who was already up? Yes, the uninvited and where was poor Tonya? Struggling to get herself out of bed to make THEM breakfast. That meant I was the entertainment until she could do that. Yes, YOU try to stuff a bird with 20 questions when you haven't had any coffee and are trying your damnest to be sociable when you aren't fully awake. Then, once you have that birdie in the oven, your wife shuffles in and pours the last cup of coffee BECAUSE she doesn't know the intruders have drunk almost all of it while flapping their jaws, watching yours truly try to stuff a turkey!
I be very particular about me morning ritual. I NEEDS ME CUP OF JOE FIRST THING OR GABRIEL BE A GLOOMY LAD! I had to wait for coffee, and as I got me cup, what happened? Intrusive hands are pouring a tenth cup for himself and asking HIS wife, not mine if she needs a topping off. I'd like to top something off!
Tonya had put some sweet rolls in the microwave and was making a quickie breakie so we could all get the hell out of her kitchen so the rest of the cooking could commence. Well, as we were eating the rolls, of which I took one, the intruders took two each. I realised HE was an authority on EVERYTHING. You say something, and he says, "Yeah, well," and off he goes with stats and crap on such intensely interesting subjects as The Mayan calendar and the end of the world (great subject for 8:30 in the morning), gamma rays of the sun threatening the earth, and how moose like to lick the minerals off the road, thus the mortality rate be higher for those moose that live near highways. I be like SERIOUSLY DUDE? Then I realised he looks at the same Discovery programmes as O'Hare. He looks at a LOT of telly he does. And you know how ludicrous all that sounds? And Tonya's sister hangs on every encyclopedic word he utters. Her favourite subject is Indie flicks.
"You learn so much about the culture by watching foreign films." And I was thinking why don't you take a trip and EXPERIENCE it instead of through a movie. You talk about all the places you've been -- why not? I was thinking to meself, I'd like to get up from this table and go order you a flight to Timbuktu. But no, I let the thought come and gooo.
When they decided to go out and "walk the grounds" (which made it seem like we lived on an estate), Tonya turned to me in question. I told her, "They probably have a tape measure and will see how much property we have." While they were out measuring the acreage, we got the rest of the meal going. I told Tonya I hoped she liked bald men because, most likely, by the end of this "invasion of me happy home" I would have torn every hair out of me head.
So they come in just as we are winding down the cooking and a few minutes out from serving to tell us they are going to take a shower and get "dressed" for dinner. Oh, to have the same luxury! No offer to help us with the dinner, no, none of that.
"And not even a box of candy or a bottle of wine," Tonya mutters. "At least HELP out."
There was nothing to be done but put dinner on hold until our two connoisseurs of the art of freebie freeloading came down, ready to chow down on a turkey dinner with all the trimmings.
And they did come down all glowing and shiny in their nice clothes, and they go in and look at the table and they sit down and . . . and wait. Oh yeah, no offer to bring anything in. While Tonya and I are alternately running in the dishes they are inhaling and saying, "That smells so yummy!" Well, you betcha!
When Tonya is just about to sit down, the sister asks if there is anything she can do? I wanted to say LEAVE would be a great idea, but I behaved. We got through dinner, except the gravy boat needed refilling, and HE handed it to me and said, "You need to top this off." Not, "I'll get more," or "PLEASE, can you get me some more," No, none of that was expected. Tonya and I exchanged glances, but off I went, suppressing the urge to pour hot gravy over his head.
While WE cleared the table, they sat there sipping wine. OUR wine. Not one bottle, but he held the empty up and shook it at me. "Refill?" Hahaha. Right, you just hold that bottle in the air and wave it at me, and I'll just pop off to our massive wine cellar and select a bottle of expensive champagne, and then I'll break out our costly Waterford crystal champagne glasses, and I'll yell out a toast. YOU two can clink the glasses hard together, breaking them over the expensive linen tablecloth and . . . If only I had all that stuff, I'd be able to afford a butler. Sigh. I know I've gotten anal on this stuff.
Once Tonya and I had the first load of four in the dishwasher, they decided no small talk they were going to take naps. So off they went. We stood there looking at each other, silently questioning, WHO DOES THAT? Come to your house, eat your food, drink your wine, and then nap. OK
"Look on the bright side, Tonya. We have at least two hours to ourselves to regain our sanity before we are bombarded again."
Here's the second part of this story you need to know about. Lois and our two neighbours on the hill rang us up a few days before to wish us a happy Thanksgiving. Now we know Lois is alone so reluctantly Tonya invited her (because you know Lois and I together equal trouble). Still, she decided to offset that with the other two neighbours, who told my soft-hearted wife that their two college grads would not be in the nest for dinner, and it was just the two of them. Well, we have a small abode, so to invite any more than we had would have been awkward as far as elbow room was concerned, SO Tonya asked them to dessert.
Between Tonya and I, we had baked two pumpkins, two pecans and one apple pie because her relatives eat a lot of pie. We had plenty because we were expecting company (as you know) for dessert. But Lois, on hearing what we had, offered to bake another pie. I was about to be pied to death. She told me she was making me a chocolate, bourbon pecan pie because it was me favourite. Well, never one to refuse a pie where it's been soused with drink, I said OK. Then I get a call, "Gabe, you don't mind if I bring that pie I made with a slice out, do you? I had to taste test it first." I thought, WHO DOES THAT? What could I say?
The old couple brought homemade biscotti, so we looked like a small bakery when everyone arrived. A bottle of Boddle's Gin and four bottles of tonic also arrived. Now, these are good people. You open your home, they bring some more party with them. Could find no fault, even with the missing pie slice. We also had another two couples we had invited to watch the football games (we asked them way back before we knew how much company we were having), and they arrived with a fine bottle of wine, eggnog and rum for drinks. Just an hour before the INVITED guests arrived, Lois called to tell me she may not make it because ever since she got the bourbon out, she'd been slugging back shots in between doses of Vicodin for her back. I was like, WHAT? You've been doing WHAT? She has a steel rod in her back, and she only just had surgery, and here she was guzzling bourbon with VICODIN. She said she read in some scientific journal that two shots of scotch or bourbon are the equivalent of a Vicodin pill. OK, but let's do both! I thought maybe I was missing something here. Perhaps I should be taking shots of Bushmills and popping a few ibuprofen to take the edge off.
She ended up arriving, and she was delightful. She actually behaved quite well, considering. She made her own gin and tonic (yes, she topped off the bourbon and Vicodin with THAT). In contrast, Tonya made rum and eggnog for a few, including the RELATIVES, who hungrily watched her pour the first two glasses they were grabbing before she mixed them so no one else would get any first. Kids, I tell ya! They act like kids. Then there were the rest of us who needed a straight scotch for so festive an atmosphere. Actually, it went well with all those extra "invited" guests. The "uninvited" ones were taken aback. We would have a gang of locals in when it was THEIR visit, and we were depriving ourselves of their engrossing conversation. Right. They didn't really know what to do; they both looked like deer caught in headlights, and I realised the problem was they couldn't lord it over the rest of the crowd because the crowd was too engaged in conversation of their own with EACH OTHER!
Oh yes, one asked another they hadn't seen for a while how such and such on the hill was coming along (some garden project). Another asked about children who had just graduated from college and lived far away from the parental home. Then someone else talked about Fred, the local gamekeeper, and how many pheasants he had put out this year. No one asked about indie flicks, food, travelling to places in the good old U.S.A. or, how long they were sponging, I mean staying, or what they did for a living. No there was no conversational opening for a "know it all" tirade on some stupid subject that none of us cared about, like the amount of Oscars swimming in Florida canals. When you can't hold court, what are you to do? Well, one sat in on a conversation, not saying a word because she had no clue and ended up staring blankly at the football game on the telly. The other one stood in the outer boundaries of a manly conversation on farming, listening or assuming to but not offering anything because . . . well. farming isn't precisely a Metropolitan subject now, is it?
Well, it's all over and done with. I said, "Let's make a deal and never do that again. Because to be quite honest with you, Tonya, though I love you dearly, I do not love your sister and her husband. I might think differently if they had shown some class, but for you and me to run around at their beck and call without any offer of assistance, be it in help or a box of chocolates or what have you, I, for one, cannot do this next year." And let me say the only reason they offered to clear dishes or help with anything is because they were told by one of our guests to at least pitch in. Otherwise, nothing like that would have taken place.
Oh, one last note. Lois told me that Tonya's sister's hubby "hates me" and that I hate him. Let me say hate is a strong word, and I never said that. He hardly talks to me, and when I talk, he looks like he's a million miles away thinking of something important because, obviously, what I have to say isn't. But I've never said a word. To hear that did not endear them.
And how did they leave us? Well, the limo arrived, and they both shot off to the loo before the long ride to Boston. He first, then her. Before they get in the limo, she whispers to me, "YOU'LL need to spray the bathroom because he really stunk it up. I had to go upstairs; it was so bad." NOW I ASK YOU: is that a parting conversation I won't forget? WHO DOES THAT? Both the deed and then telling me to do something about it? I was horrified. I muttered something to her about a can of Lysol under the sink, but she didn't offer to go in and clear the smell out; no, that was for ME to do.
WOW.
Gabe
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6 comments:
even i brung ya booze stuffins when i visit yer arse geezums
CHANGE YOUR PHONE NUMBER!LOL
OR leave a voicemail on guests phones that you have a creeping case of something contagious.
When it's family (SIGH), I suppose this sort of behaviour is expected. They feel they be family and no rules need be set. So what can you do really but grin and bear it. I do notice narry an invitation to their abode.
not even a flower arrangement? a decorative candle? a batch of homemade cookies? certainly they could have found something at the airport to give as a token of their appreciation or they could have asked the limo driver to stop at a package store and bought you both a bottle of wine. or even a couple of toys for the little ones! what nerve! family or not family, that is impolite. could you hear me saying "why I never!" as I read?
Why Fionnula I never took you for the "Why I never" type. LOL But no to all those things. The coulda, but didn't, woulda but didn't think to, and shoulda, but they have no class to know better. I know I shouldn't make excuses and will stop.
ROFLMAO! I know the one thing I couldn't get used to when I first came here was when guests, who were only aquaintances at the time, went right into me fridge without me even having a chance to offer up some refreshment. Who does that? Oh, and I like that you make up words, can't wait to see how that goes down. LOL
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