Tell us about your idiot relatives

[blueerica]

Some people never will... /sigh

[Prudence]

My family is actually pretty wonderful. They are all slightly wacky, but frankly we're a pretty swell bunch. No run-ins with the law. Any brushes with the news media have been for heart-warming "Eye on America" stuff. After my grandmother's funeral we all congregated in her room at my aunt's place and just divided up the stuff in a thoroughly agreeable fashion. Sure, one of my cousin's is a bit self-centered, and another hasn't trained her overly friendly labs that not everyone wants a tongue bath the minute they walk in the door, and my dad is on a personal crusade against corporations, but we're still psycho-free. Definitely no idiots. Disproportionate number of advanced degrees, but no idiots.

[Gemini Cricket]

You know who's cool? My dad. I didn't always think so, but now I do.
He's a Harley riding deacon with the Catholic Church. He likes tequila and Hawaiian food. He likes fart jokes and 'The Sopranos'.

[Betty]

Wow-my family seems so normal now. That's nice.

Except for my husbands brother and family. They live in the same city as us - yet we see them only on Christmas. They are invited to all the usual family fuctions but never come.

They used to though - until The Incident. My youngest and their youngest (who is actually a few months older) were playing around at a brunch years ago at some buffet restaraunt. They were all of 2 years old and my husband's brother jokingly (?) egged his son on to hit mine or wrestle with him or something. Nothing much happened - a quick few tears that ended. I missed the whole thing but was curious - so the next day I emailed her asking what had happened. And apparently while describing the incident in a way very similar to how I just did, I angered her to the point where she sent several flaming emails my way. I replied with an - oh no - you've misunderstood - I didn't mean that. This furhter insulted her, implying that (gasp!) she'd not understood what I was trying to say.

So - out of an incident 6 years ago, we don't see them anymore. I'd love to get to know my nephews more - but I think they fear her wackiness as much as the rest of us.

She's taking medication now (mental issues) and that's helped a bit. Apparently I just got a taste.

But still - we only see them once a year.


On my side of the family is the child molesting husband adopted child of a relative who - thankfully - is now dead. So is his married-to-someone-who-could-never-do-that wife. Their child is with other family members.

[JWBear]

Originally Posted by Betty

Wow-my family seems so normal now...

You took the words out of my... um... fingers!

[Disneyphile]

Dad - normally wonderful and supportive. However, with mom's recent fight with stage 4 uterine cancer, he's turned into a total ass, using "tough love", thus resulting in her feeling abandoned during her battle.

Sister - she's 40 going on 14. Her favorite non-swear word is "penis", and she loves to talk very loudly about who she sleeps with, intends on sleeping with, or our parents' sex life and/or body parts. (No joke.) Vindictive and vile, she always insists on getting her way, and will abuse/coerce anyone she can just to see that she gets her way. Her latest endeavor - keeping "score" on how many times she's visited with our mother during recovery, versus how many times Ken and I have, even though we live 300 miles away. Her claim - "It's not fair that Teresa hasn't been here as often as I have." (And, she lives about 15 minutes from their house.)

Brother - 42, and still bitter and crazy for the last 32 years that I've been around on this planet. He's hated me since birth, since I wasn't a boy. (Seriously.) He physically and mentally abused me as a kid, and even punched me in the nose on my 15th birthday. (Keep in mind he's 10 years older than me.) He's single, and can't keep a woman past a few months, because of his chauvenism. He even refused to wear the matching t-shirts for our dad's 60th birthday party, because I made them.

[katiesue]

Originally Posted by Disneyphile

Dad - normally wonderful and supportive. However, with mom's recent fight with stage 4 uterine cancer, he's turned into a total ass, using "tough love", thus resulting in her feeling abandoned during her battle.

My Mom did this with my Dad's brain tumor. She read a book somewhere that said you shouldn't baby people with cancer. Well that would have been just hunky dory if the tumor wasn't pressing on the part of his brain that controlled motor functions. He couldn't make his hands work properly but because she read it in some mumbo jumbo book he was supposed to fend for himself, make his own dinner etc. Whatever.

And the reason she wasn't home was she was at the rest home visiting my great aunt, who thought it was 1932 most of the time and had no idea who was who. And who my mother wasn't close to at all until she became ill. I think my mom likes people to see what a great person she is - it's all for show. Look how she visits her Aunt every day, what a great gal.

She loves to visit the ill and elderly obscure relatives (second cousin's a billion times removed) but me or my sister - forget it. I can't tell you how many times we got sent home from school sick because she made us got to school as we were "faking".

[scaeagles]

Petty siblings sure suck, DPhile. I am fortunate enough to only have one, a sister, and a good one a that.

[BarTopDancer]

My uncle. And maybe when I'm bored in class I'll post about him and his mofron ways.

[BarTopDancer]

Originally Posted by BarTopDancer

My uncle. And maybe when I'm bored in class I'll post about him and his mofron ways.

My uncle. The wonderful control freak who will not be invited to my wedding. I found out he would be visiting for a week and I promptly moved out of the house.

Control freak says it all. When my aunt, him and my cousins were visitng a few years ago (so I'm in my mid-20s, not living at home, supporting myself yadda yadda*) we (their family, my parents and myself) go to LA to visit more family). We had a sucktastic day (every day with him is sucktastic) and I decided I would park my butt at Starbucks and enjoy people watching while they go shop Rodeo Drive. He has a fit that my parents "allow me" (see * above) to hang out at Starbucks instead of doing what he wanted.

OK, so later we all go for dinner and I have a salad, and am still a bit hungry so I asked my dad if I could get a side of pancakes (we were at IHOP). My lovely uncle says something to me about eating enough already. Uh, thanks. Then he bit my dads head off for stating that 1) I was an adult and 2) he was not my father. Uncle has a fit. (It should be noted that throughout the entire visit he tried to control my food intake )

Through the whole visit he was just a big baby and kept trying to boss me around (and those of know you will know how bad of an idea this is) and control everyone

Needless to say that visit did not go well.

I found out about a year ago his daughters have severe eating disorders. Gee, I wonder why.

And that is my idiot family member.