Gaaaaaaah

Went to Dad's. Why? Why? WHY?

It was actually pretty fun although I have the usual bad taste in my mouth, for two reasons:

1. As always, there is no picture of the baby on the wall, fridge, mantel, etc. There are several of her children and grandchildren, but none of any of us. Dad said to us, "(Uh, ahem) Er, you might notice that there aren't any pictures of you around here, and, well, that's because I don't have any, so maybe you should go get some taken and then send them to me so I can put 'em up."

This was the point where I helpfully pointed out that I had sent him some of the baby when I had her 2-year portraits done, six months ago, and had a certain amount of satisfaction watching him squirm uncomfortably. "Oh, well, see, they weren't in a frame," he says.

In all fairness, I don't have any pictures of him up either and that's because my mother comes to visit and I don't want her to have to look at him or his evil wife.

2. They have a slightly ratty piano they are trying to get rid of and were going to try to gift it to us, not remembering that we have one already. They don't visit all that often but the piano is front and center when you walk in the door. Oh well. At any rate they decide that they'll try to give it to my brother, as I did mention that he had tried to borrow ours when his kids got big enough to be forced into lessons (being good Mormons they must have piano lessons), but they are living in his mother-in-law's house while the in-laws are out of state building their business, and there is a piano there, so they didn't want it either. So when I get up in the morning Dad tells me they had to scramble to come up with a gift for my brother, and ended up presenting him with a 30.06 rifle that Dad had had for a while but had never used.

3. Okay, so ask me what I got.

4. Nothing.

5. I'm not kidding.

6. They were going to give me a stinking cookbook. I unwittingly headed that off when I told a story about how last year J's parents gave all the menfolk in the family those hand-crank flashlights and the women got cookbooks. Yeah, I get a cookbook every single year from her, and since J is female also, she got one too, so we got 2 cookbooks and no flashlight. Man, I woulda loved one of those to put in the car or the emergency kit or whatever. How many freaking cookbooks do I need anyway?! OMG!! Last summer I sold about a dozen of them off at the garage sale, weird church-bazaar ones and little brand name one and the like.

7. So they gave the cookbook to my brother's wife and I got nothing.

8. So he gets a rifle and I get nothing? WTF!

My intent is to say nothing about the rifle, as that will only make me look greedy (when really I'm just kind of hurt that they "scrambled" to come up with a gift for him but not for me), but I will tell him in no uncertain terms that he needs to find the pictures of Delia that I am very careful to send him every single time I get them taken, and take the extra half hour to go get a frame (the nice people at the frame store will be happy to help) and put them up because it's getting old, year after year, to see no pictures of her and have to stare at the other grandkids' photos. One day the baby will be old enough to realize that she isn't featured on their walls like the other kids, and you can bet your ass that I will be letting Grandpa explain to her that he was too fucking lazy to go get a frame.

I am certain that his evil wife has no trouble remembering to get frames for the photos of the other grandkids.

OMG it's time now to forget all this and move on. He's never going to change.

More empirical data

Got another email from Dad. I think at this point I don't block them just for the perverse joy I get out of picking them apart.

What I would like to emphasize in this email is the steaming hot guilt tag at the end, which I have emboldened for ease of identification.

Here goes... Sorry...

"THE U IN JESUS

Before U were thought of or time had begun,
God stuck U in the name of His Son.

And each time U pray, you'll see it's true,
You can't spell out JesUs and not include U.

You're a pretty big part of His wonderful name,
For U, He was born; that's why He came.

And His great love for U is the reason He died.
It even takes U to spell crUcified.

Isn't it thrilling and splendidly grand
He rose from the dead, with U in His plan?

The stones split away, the gold trUmpet blew,
and this word resUrrection is spelled with a U.

When JesUs left earth at His upward ascension,
He felt there was one thing He just had to mention.

"Go into the world and tell them it's true
That I love them all - Just like I love U."

So many great people are spelled with a U,
Don't they have a right to know JesUs too?

It all depends now on what U will do,
He'd like them to know,
But it all starts with U.

Will YOU pass it on.

When Jesus died on the cross he was thinking of you!

If you are one of the 7% who will stand up for him, forward this.
93% of people won't forward this"

.... Okay, so that kinda speaks for itself. The guilt tag at the end seems to be a fairly constant feature of these emails. I'm sure the author(s) view this as a "challenge" but I consider it to be more of a "snotty little hassle" and have yet to forward a single such email, strictly out of principle, but in small part also due to the extreme sappiness and/or offensivity of the content.