Dysfuntional Family, Make it Extra Large

Ahhh a Saturday.

Picnics in the park.

Swimming at the lake.

Going to a movie and ordering popcorn with EXTRA butter.

Attending a family function you would never have attended had it not been for the possibility of guilt rearing its ugly head when these people finally die off.

Hunh?

My perfect sister (my only sibling) celebrated her and her perfect husbands’ 40th wedding anniversary on Saturday at a popular restaurant in town.

Now don’t get me wrong…I love my sister, even though I really don’t know her. You see, she is just a tad (9 years) older than me and has never shared my interest in being “friends” for some reason. At one time in our lives, we saw each other every year at Christmas because our dear father insisted. Our dear mother, on the other hand, would probably have skipped the entire “lets get married and have a family” thing had she possessed a smidgen of foresight what-so-ever.

Be that as it may…whether it was caused by a slight brain fart or some minor blow to the head, my dear mother called me to PLEAD with me to attend this function. That same night, (coincidence? – I think not) dear father called to inquire as to my plan to either attend or not attend this fantastic display of perfection that was to be my sisters anniversary party. He has a way of “twisting the screws” without you noticing until it is done and over with.

It seems as if life itself hung in the balance of my attending or not attending this party.

Needless to say, I went. It is really not my fault, as it has not been very long since I GREW the balls to “Just Say No” to these family things. It only took 43 years of chewing bloody, mangled holes in my lips and weeks of diarrhea before and after each event to figure out that my family is really not very healthy for me.

I decided to go on Saturday, for purely selfish reasons. Attending this party when there are really about 7 million other things I’d rather do, like – oh I don’t know, get a ROOT CANAL, should heap up the points on the old “guilt meter”. You know, just in case they die any time soon.

As far as a party goes, it was okay. My sister was perfect, her husband was perfect, her three children were perfect, their children were perfect, the decorations were perfect, the cake was perfect, the food was perfect, it was just all so totally effing perfect I nearly shit myself.

What can be finer than a Saturday?