More wedding drama

There is nothing like a joyous occasion to knock the scab off the festering dysfunction in our family. The wedding plans for my younger brothers daughter are progressing, and with it, all of the ax grinding that passes for family life with us.

Enter my niece’s sister, niece v.2. Niece v.2 has not received her invitation yet, and has been convinced by grandma that she has been ruthlessly excluded. The reason for this conviction on dear old mom’s part is because when my younger brother and his wife got married 26 years ago, the mother of the bride had decided that there would be no children at the wedding with the exception of the ring bearer and the flower girl. In this instance the flower girl of choice was my niece who was about 5 at the time. Niece v.2 was about 2 and therefore has vivid personal memories of this traumatic occasion.

To enter the realm of reality once more, there is a fairly simple explanation for niece v.2’s invitation going astray. Her current living situation is a bit on the peripatetic side and she is, to the best of my knowledge, in a peculiar housing situation. She has some sort of time share arrangement in the house she had purchased with her erstwhile fiancé. Niece v.2 has the house for a month, then, ex-fiancé and his new girlfriend have it for a month while niece v.2 stays with a friend. I am inclined to think it is a small wonder that her mail may occasionally go astray. But let's not allow common sense to get in the way of a good grudge!

The upshot of all of this is that my poor niece was subjected to the high pitched whining of her sister. (A sound that can only be heard by dogs and relatives.) The refrain was “They don’t want me there, anyway!” supported by the Greek chorus of her parents, (who it turns out are still pissed off after 26 years, over having to shell out for a baby sitter.) her idiot aunt (my 38 year old sister who still lives with my parents) and of course my mother.

The punch line is that niece v.2 had no intention of attending the wedding in the first place. My niece and her boyfriend had already offered to fly her up and put her up with them. She doesn’t want to take the time off from work and she doesn’t want to spend the money. All with the constant refrain of “They don’t want me there anyway.”

I was on the phone the other night with my friend Clint, making plans for the weekend and gossiping. I started to fill him in on the wedding/grudge match. He started laughing and paraphrased Terry Pratchett. “Oh, you mean it’s about, “what their Darryl said about our Sean at cousin Diana's wedding!” I couldn’t put it better.