Fun for the whole family

My younger sister as a matter of family pride has proven that if common sense and common courtesy ever come calling, they will not find her at home.

Not to be left out of the fun, she called my sister-in-law to let her know that she and my parents would be availing themselves of the block of rooms that have been reserved for guests at the nearby hotel, which offers a shuttle service to the country club where the wedding will be held.

While she had my sister-in-law on the phone, she decided to ascertain whether niece v.2 had been invited. My sister has been working as an understudy to my mother for years now, and has even adopted many of her vocal mannerisms so I can only assume the message was delivered with all of the subtlety of a brick with a note tied to it thrown through a window. Mom has a way of asking a question, especially when it is obviously none of her business and is more than rude to be inquired of in the first place that is at once sneaky and transparent. It has the irritating quality of letting the interigatee know that while she is information mining, she is doing so in such a clever way that they will never suspect that she is pumping them. I think it’s the tone of fatuous smugness that gets to me.

The upshot is that my poor sister-in-law’s feelings have been hurt and it is just throwing another log on the fire. I haven’t spoken to my brother, but I can only imagine that he is fuming by now.

Meanwhile, my niece has her own cross to bear. She had been asked to make hotel reservations for her parents. (Actually, for her dad, the rest of this one is a story in itself.) She made the reservations, and then changed them when she found out about the reserved block of rooms. This lead to a rather heated discussion with her folks, because the rooms at the hotel with the shuttle service cost $50 more. My niece tried to point out that the extra cost was cheaper than getting picked up for DUI, but this argument fell on deaf ears. My brother and his wife are nice people but simply saying that they are cheap really falls pretty wide of the mark. They would never dream of pinching pennies, because that might wear valuable copper off the pennies.

After what was a fairly long harangue over the phone, my niece finally quieted them down by assuring them that the reservation at the less expensive hotel was still in place. So much for being helpful!

The niece and I have formed a sanity pact. We are now going to actively avoid any interaction with our family before the event that can be avoided. I think we should just build a blind and observe the behavior of the monkey troop from a safe distance. The question now is what to wear for camouflage?