Families are like assholes

…full of shit. 

<Drafted this post over New Year’s just getting around to proofread/post now>

As I have mentioned before, my parents have returned from three years overseas.  They have a special bond with my born-again Christian, unemployed, criminal-record, former-druggie brother.  When I turned 18, they bought me a computer and co-signed a loan for me to pay back to pay for it.  No help with college or life from thereon out.  My brother’s college was paid for plus car loans plus overlooking the $10k he embezzled from them during my mother’s recovery from a massive heart attack.  But, hey, he is born again, folks!

Anyhoo.  Parents are back and they want us to kumbaya and have “family time”.  So they pay for unemployed brother and his wife, daughter and son to fly several thousand miles to spend a week at a beach house with us.  They pay for their rental car, their food, etc., all in the name of “bonding.”  We come late because Baby J is spewing out both ends.  Pumpkinhead got picked up when the spewing started because God forbid he miss time with his cousin (both my nephew and niece are 9 months younger than each of my kids because, you know, my brother has to knock someone up every time I give birth). [Disclaimer: I DO love my niece and nephew, and even my SIL.  Am just brother-bitter.]

We arrive and find that my brother has given Pumpkinhead a bible for Christmas (the only present from him) along with words of encouragement about his spirituality.  Don’t get me wrong, I’m a happy-go-lucky Episcopalian but my brother is psycho nuts. Brother is quizzing him on our [non] church-going habits and asking him to quote scripture. The kid even stopped dinner and asked for us to say grace tonight. 

Christianity aside, the worse discovery was that my brother is now a football freak.  He was watching football when we arrived and interrupted dinner because “I gave up this game to be here with ‘you people’”.  So hard done by….

However, the biggest issue is that, despite my parents’ protests, my brother has the heat up to 76.  In a gulf state where the low is in the high 30s/early 40s.  Parents of course gave their golden child the master bedroom, king bed, walk-in shower and spa tub.  While the rest of us are sweating our asses off, tossing and turning, brother and his wife are happy as clams and even in freaking sweats.  So the next day I have a talk with brother and ask if we can compromise on a slightly cooler solution.  His response?  “We will turn it as high as we want to ensure our child is comfortable.”  Okay, so your daughter, in bed with you and your wife, will be warm enough (cause 69 is freezing!) but your son, my son, my toddler, my husband, my mother, my father and I will all be dying from heatstroke?  Not selfish AT ALL….

Mr. V and I were both ready to kill him when my mother asked us to just close our vents, ignore the football and be kind.  That’s when we said we were leaving.  She begged us to stay and, so far, we are doing so.  If you are my FB friend, you are seeing kind, sweet pics of the family.  That said, except for Christmas Eve with my mom’s cousins and other extended family, this is as much as I want to do anytime soon.  My mother is acting a martyr, my bipolar father is being a total self-centered asshole to anyone he meets, be it a waiter or his own daughter, brother’s wife complains about me but won’t talk to me and brother is an asshole (even self-centered Dad agrees).

Took a vacation day on the second to help my mother clean.  Cannot WAIT to leave this hellhole and my family and get back to my core family and some reality.

Anyone else feeling the family drama?