Inside Voices Please
So every year - just after Christmas all the women in my husband's family go out to lunch. Last Saturday should have been the day but since it was somebody's wedding today was the day. I usually enjoy seeing about half the people but today was particularly interesting. And the bride luckily had something else she had to do so I was on my own.
The people in this family do not know what is AN INSIDE VOICE!!!!! They use booming, inappropriate look at me voices. They talk about dead people, sex and call each other ho. They drink too much wine and have to listen to our lord and master - my husband's youngest sister - the self appointed matriarch of the family. Mind you she is not the oldest nor the most well liked tight ass in the group - oops, not nice!!
Lunch was at a local restaurant where said SIL frequently dines. She ran to meet me at the door to tell me to hide a picture of cousin Annie in my photo album of the wedding because she was invited to the small wedding and all the cousins present today were not. I refused and she sighed deeply.
Lunch was filled with nibbling off other's plates, making loud references to death, suicides, premarital sex lives of all of the cousins in their 50s, and oh - let us not forget we must analyze the dreams of those speaking to dead mothers and grandmothers. All of this next to another large table with an extended family with young children. They ate quickly and left.
THEN - it's time to pay. SIL law says let's just divide it. Usually I am ok with this but I ate a $9 sandwich and a $2.25 diet pop. Some of those present had three and four glasses of wine at $4.50 a glass. I said NO!! SIL was not happy. As it was I stuck in $16 because the poor waitress was worked very hard. After all the money is collected SIL says there was too big a tip. Double the tax would be $36 and we had $42. Mind you there were 14 of us and some of us were loud and unruly. Three of us - who were waitresses in a previous era said NO!! SIL was not happy but the big tip was left.
We met at 12:30 and I got home after 3:00. Thank GOD for the older family friend that's more than family. I got to sit next to her while we muttered disparagingly under our breaths. Every year I say I am not going to do this again and every year I go. WTF???? I should have had the wine!
The people in this family do not know what is AN INSIDE VOICE!!!!! They use booming, inappropriate look at me voices. They talk about dead people, sex and call each other ho. They drink too much wine and have to listen to our lord and master - my husband's youngest sister - the self appointed matriarch of the family. Mind you she is not the oldest nor the most well liked tight ass in the group - oops, not nice!!
Lunch was at a local restaurant where said SIL frequently dines. She ran to meet me at the door to tell me to hide a picture of cousin Annie in my photo album of the wedding because she was invited to the small wedding and all the cousins present today were not. I refused and she sighed deeply.
Lunch was filled with nibbling off other's plates, making loud references to death, suicides, premarital sex lives of all of the cousins in their 50s, and oh - let us not forget we must analyze the dreams of those speaking to dead mothers and grandmothers. All of this next to another large table with an extended family with young children. They ate quickly and left.
THEN - it's time to pay. SIL law says let's just divide it. Usually I am ok with this but I ate a $9 sandwich and a $2.25 diet pop. Some of those present had three and four glasses of wine at $4.50 a glass. I said NO!! SIL was not happy. As it was I stuck in $16 because the poor waitress was worked very hard. After all the money is collected SIL says there was too big a tip. Double the tax would be $36 and we had $42. Mind you there were 14 of us and some of us were loud and unruly. Three of us - who were waitresses in a previous era said NO!! SIL was not happy but the big tip was left.
We met at 12:30 and I got home after 3:00. Thank GOD for the older family friend that's more than family. I got to sit next to her while we muttered disparagingly under our breaths. Every year I say I am not going to do this again and every year I go. WTF???? I should have had the wine!