Saturday, April 28, 2007

Squirrels in My Family Tree

Speaking of insanity in the family....how many of us have a relative who leaves us unsure of whether to laugh or to pull our hair out?

Here's one of mine. A thoughtful "happy birthday" message from a close relation who has not spoken to me in about 6 or 7 months.

Quote: I hope you have a happy birthday. I felt you should know we are alive. Nobody on my side of the family seems to care about us.

Um. I think it had something to do with the writer telling us repeatedly "I wish you were all dead", "you're all a bunch of losers", "I wish I wasn't related to you" and "I never want to speak to any of you again, don't call me or contact me".

So...no one called them or contacted them. Be careful what you ask for is about all I can say. Correct me if I'm wrong here but if someone said "don't call me or contact me" and you continued to try....wouldn't that be classified as stalking???

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

I can never understand the American obsession with "family". I'm 4,500 miles away from mine - and thankful! Americans are forever telling me how they look forward to all their relatives descending for Thanksgiving, or Christmas, or for no apparent reason whatever, and I cower in horror at the very thought. The old adage, "you can choose your friends, but not your relatives" is very relevant. My wife, who is an American, feels just as I do, but I fear she's in the minority in the US. Another phrase constantly bandied about is "family values". What the **** are "family values"? "Family" is only valuable if you value them. In my case, I value three of my relatives, the rest can rot in hell and I have no desire to ever see them again, let alone eat a Thanksgiving dinner in their company. Tell your relative not to bother next year, as the card was just a ploy to gain sympathy.
Incidentally - Happy Birthday!

Anonymous said...

According to you, Mama mia, and to rj adams, I might not be as uniquely weird as I thought. I have never been intrested in my relations and most of them have always made me quickly dart to hide arround a corner or behind a tree. Sometimes it's quite embarassing when they do the same thing when seeing me. Oh well, as long as we don't pick the same corner or the tree! :)

Not Your Mama said...

Luckily for me I have very, very few living ones. (no, I did NOT kill any of them ;)

My fault actually. I played the part of "rescuer" and resident punching bag for many years so when I abdicated that role not everyone got the memo.

TomCat said...

It has been my experience that such statements as your family member made are a form of attention seeking theough acting out.

Women on the Verge said...

Stalking... or a hobby... guess it depends on your point of view...

Seriously though, I've got my share of whirling, sucking vortices of despair in my life and I do my very best to avoid contact at all costs ( FINALLY... took me awhile to figure that out though.. mama, you sure we weren't separated at birth???)

E

Flimsy Sanity said...

I don't have to look up my family tree, because I know that I'm the sap. ~Fred Allen

United We Lay said...

My family is huge, and there are bound to be a few crazies. My aunt just died from complications from colon cancer and alcoholism and I hardly remember her even though she's been at every family event for the past 30 years, but drunk. People are weird.