Incoming rant on the nature of Aunts..
Jul. 12th, 2003 02:40 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
madwitchI like my life. Mostly, it is a marvellous thing, filled as it is with good friends, an insane (in a good way) family, a nice job and other good stuff. There are down points, yes, but nothing major. This does occasionally lead me to wonder where the balancing factor is. What is there that brings life down from the heights of almost perfect (which is isn't) to merely rather fab (which it is)?
My Aunt.
She's been staying at my parent's while they've been away, and now that the weekend is here she's gone off to her daughter's, and I'm looking after my parent's house. Something I've done rather a lot in my life, being the only one of the Telford children living outside of London.
Yesterday I called her from work to find out when she planned to leave, as I find her trying at the best of times. Then, assured that she is going and won't be there when I get home, I head off to Solent 'Ling. Where my mother phones me from France and says something about the land line being engaged and hoping it was a local call I was making. Aunt has left the phone off the hook, obviously. Possibly as some kind of warped security measure. My mother and I agree that she is rather dim.
So then my sister calls..dear Aunt has been phoning her every ten minutes in a panic as she can't get through to the house, and is terribly worried because she's left the shed unlocked, and people may steal things from it. My sister has given her my mobile number, yet dim Aunt fails to use it, preferring to pester my sister instead.
My parents moved house last year, from a really big house to a much smaller one. There were quite a lot of things that they didn't want to throw away, but can't fit in the new house..pianos, chairs, the spare freezer, things like that. These things live in the shed. Not exactly the kind of thing your average random thief is going to be bothering with.
Anyway. I get home, surprise, the phone is off the hook and the shed is unravaged. This morning, Aunt rings again, proceeds to start berating me about being on the phone all night. I point out that the engaged signal was all her fault, and that the broken chest freezer is safe in the shed. She then starts to tell me how to look after the cats..these would be the cats we've had for the past 20 or so years..that I look after a lot...
I count to 10 and say goodbye. She phones again, to tell me what plans my parents had for today, and when they intended to set off home. My parents. Who I'd spoken to last night. And yes, I had told her that.
Two hours later..she calls again. To see if Mum & Dad have called yet. Because obviously experience has not taught her that they only ever call at night, just before they pass out from excessive holiday wine consumption. And just before she goes, she has to give me her advice on how to avoid falling ill from using telephones in the office that other people may have used. I'm surprised that she failed to mention wiping doorhandles before you touch them.
I think she's never forgiven my parents for refusing to listen to her advice on bringing up children. She frequently tells my parents that they are 'unfortunate in their children'. So..three well adjusted, reasonably successful, confident, popular and above all happy children is bad, and children who join Mensa because their mum tells them to, marry who they're told to (or risk being cut off from their mother's heart, right up until the first grandchild), go into the careers that their mother tells them to, even though they hate them, is good. Playing the martyred widow for 20 years and telling your son how much his father would have hated his new daughter in law is good. Oh, and telling your late husband's brother (my dad) the same thing (when it's just so much crap) isn't going to bring him to the kind of spitting anger a man with a heart condition can do without.
I should have patience. I should consider the fact that she is a lonely woman, and dictating to her family is the only way she can be anything else. I shouldn't point out that this way of being may be the reason why she's a lonely woman.
I did have patience with her once. And then the years passed, and she just got worse, and it all melted away....
Gah! At least she's not a blood relation.
My Aunt.
She's been staying at my parent's while they've been away, and now that the weekend is here she's gone off to her daughter's, and I'm looking after my parent's house. Something I've done rather a lot in my life, being the only one of the Telford children living outside of London.
Yesterday I called her from work to find out when she planned to leave, as I find her trying at the best of times. Then, assured that she is going and won't be there when I get home, I head off to Solent 'Ling. Where my mother phones me from France and says something about the land line being engaged and hoping it was a local call I was making. Aunt has left the phone off the hook, obviously. Possibly as some kind of warped security measure. My mother and I agree that she is rather dim.
So then my sister calls..dear Aunt has been phoning her every ten minutes in a panic as she can't get through to the house, and is terribly worried because she's left the shed unlocked, and people may steal things from it. My sister has given her my mobile number, yet dim Aunt fails to use it, preferring to pester my sister instead.
My parents moved house last year, from a really big house to a much smaller one. There were quite a lot of things that they didn't want to throw away, but can't fit in the new house..pianos, chairs, the spare freezer, things like that. These things live in the shed. Not exactly the kind of thing your average random thief is going to be bothering with.
Anyway. I get home, surprise, the phone is off the hook and the shed is unravaged. This morning, Aunt rings again, proceeds to start berating me about being on the phone all night. I point out that the engaged signal was all her fault, and that the broken chest freezer is safe in the shed. She then starts to tell me how to look after the cats..these would be the cats we've had for the past 20 or so years..that I look after a lot...
I count to 10 and say goodbye. She phones again, to tell me what plans my parents had for today, and when they intended to set off home. My parents. Who I'd spoken to last night. And yes, I had told her that.
Two hours later..she calls again. To see if Mum & Dad have called yet. Because obviously experience has not taught her that they only ever call at night, just before they pass out from excessive holiday wine consumption. And just before she goes, she has to give me her advice on how to avoid falling ill from using telephones in the office that other people may have used. I'm surprised that she failed to mention wiping doorhandles before you touch them.
I think she's never forgiven my parents for refusing to listen to her advice on bringing up children. She frequently tells my parents that they are 'unfortunate in their children'. So..three well adjusted, reasonably successful, confident, popular and above all happy children is bad, and children who join Mensa because their mum tells them to, marry who they're told to (or risk being cut off from their mother's heart, right up until the first grandchild), go into the careers that their mother tells them to, even though they hate them, is good. Playing the martyred widow for 20 years and telling your son how much his father would have hated his new daughter in law is good. Oh, and telling your late husband's brother (my dad) the same thing (when it's just so much crap) isn't going to bring him to the kind of spitting anger a man with a heart condition can do without.
I should have patience. I should consider the fact that she is a lonely woman, and dictating to her family is the only way she can be anything else. I shouldn't point out that this way of being may be the reason why she's a lonely woman.
I did have patience with her once. And then the years passed, and she just got worse, and it all melted away....
Gah! At least she's not a blood relation.
