#tw family drama

The regional town I live in is also home to my dad’s brother (who had a very serious heart attack a couple months ago (think a month in hospital)) and his wife. It’s my grandfather’s home town, where he was a big shot lawyer. We (I) always looked down on the wife a bit because she was this petite, overly nice, silliness of a person. But since moving here she’s taken me out, brought me, more meals than I can count. And been very, very nice for no other reason than to be nice. Weird. 

And knowing I live a ten minute walk from them, she went out of her way to drop off an easter feast and talk lots on the phone, while never being obtuse about social distancing. 

i got drunk today. She called and I came so close to agreeing to have her and my uncle over for a socially distant pizza. I would buy the pizza and meet in my driveway and sit ten feet apart and just enjoy the company. They wouldn’t come near me, they wouldn’t come in my house, and actually that would be great (I haven’t had a real in person conversation for months). I agreed and then back tracked because it was still a risk and I couldn’t draw a clear line between that and the insanity that was last week’s cousins’ visit to my grandparents’ house. 

Then I got drunker and fought with my parents on facetime over it all. Their point of view is ‘what more can we do (but disagree with it)’. Mine is ‘what have you done?’ because no one had backed me. No one has disagreed with me about the facts because they are fucking facts, but no one has said to these bullshit relatives: you fucked up, stop it. 

So I blocked my whole family on message. If they need me I have email and facebook. But fuck this. Fuck this so hard. Back in New York, In 2016-2017 I came to the realization that I was just kind of hanging around to keep them happy, I don’t have much else, and this is making me question even that. So that’s fun. And also I am drunk because it’s the only way I know how to be. 

Under a cut because it’s a long, incoherent rant about my extended family and one specific group of morons who broke the law and went and spent time with my grandparents yesterday. 

It was my grandmother’s birthday yesterday. I guess I haven’t seen her for a couple months which isn’t so bad since I usually only see her every month or so. Her and my pop. They live about a half hour from my parents and I live another 2.5 hours from them. I was good and gave her a call around dinner time to wish her a happy birthday and we talked for fifteen minutes and then she had to hang up on me because her dinner had arrived. 

So. Dinner comes in the form of my vapid aunt by marriage to my mum’s youngest brother. I hate this woman and her entire family at this point and am already working out how never to have to see them again. 

Why? They’re been the worst of my mum’s family for the last decade. They manipulate my grandparents and it’s increasingly clear they are positioning themselves to get more of the inheritance. They’re selfish and self-centered, notoriously, so this shouldn’t surprise anyone and it doesn’t even really upset me. I don’t need any of the inheritance, whatever. Watched that shit burn my dad’s family to bits fifteen years ago. 

Part of that manipulation is being the family to step up and help my grandparents during isolation. Cooking meals and picking up groceries and shit like that. Which they proceeded to brag about and show off on our family facebook chat and then demand money. Not request, or ask nicely. But basically say, we’re doing more than you guys (because, mind you, they live the closest) so you have to pay for it. I didn’t. Neither did my other aunt. And we got publicly shamed for it. 

Now here’s the thing. This family is big. Parents, four kids, two married with live in husbands, two grandkids. All in one house. And they’re dumb. And they live in my state’s hotspot for covid. So as this is playing out my main concern is my grandparent’s health and it’s becoming increasingly clear that this dumbfuck family are either too dumb to understand the risks, or too selfish. My grandparents needed bread and milk and I stuck my hand up and said I’d get right on it. My plan was to drive the 3 hours down, dump it on their doorstep, then drive the three hours back. I am the lowest risk member of the extended family. I live alone. I have been leaving my house once a week for food and that’s that. My regional city hasn’t had an outbreak. Let me do this. I’ve explained the risks, even though they’re small, I’m happy to make the risk even smaller. 

I’m steamrolled and told that I’m basically not welcome, and the dumbfuck family will take care of it. 

I left the family chat after that. And had a row with my family who seem to understand that I am right and that the dumbfuck’s involvement was definitely increasing the risk where it did not need to be increased. 

Now, this was about a month ago. I made my peace with it. I still called my grandparents every week. Then I found out that in the midsts of all this, three members of the dumbfuck family had gone to hospital. No idea if it was extended stays, or what. They’re hypochondriacs. They’re fine now. But I can guess there were at least a couple of overnight stays, and I can guess everyone went in to visit. I can also guess it was a hospital that was/is treating covid. So the risk goes up again. 

I’m also assuming they’re not doing great at the isolation (I wouldn’t be either in a house of 10 people) as it sounds like they’re doing daily shops and I would bet they’re hanging out with friends. The risk goes up a lot more. 

Then last night, after I’m hung up on by my grandmother, I’m wondering what she got for dinner. I’m sad. I have some drinks because fuck it. 

And two hours later I get a missed facetime from them. They don’t know how to facetime. I wasn’t even sure if their phone could do it. Yet another thing I would have loved to have fixed but couldn’t because it wasn’t worth the risk. I trying calling back three times and then eventually they call me and it’s my beautiful, little old grandmother’s face. She is happy to see me and I’m happy to see her and she looks well and in the space of a 37 second call, I wish her happy birthday and then get flipped around to see a number of the DUMBFUCK FUCKING FAMILY OF FUCKWIT SELFISH CUNTS in my grandparent’s house. I’m drunk and probably still happy to have seen my grandmothers so I say a joyous hello to them and then I’m hung up on. 

Here’s a thing I did not find out until later. One of the daughters got tested (negative result) for the virus a few weeks ago. It was in the group chat I’d left. She’s literally the only person I know who has had the test, and when she got it, it had to have been because she a direct link to a probably positive. 

But anyway. I’m guessing 4-10 members of the dumbfuck family went to my grandparent’s house and spend more than two hours there, sharing a meal, and teaching them how to facetime. At the moment, where I live, this is against the law. I could dob them in and they’d likely get a visit or call from police and warned not to do this thing that everyone knows is against the fucking law. 

So. Can it be that they’re so dumb, after all my explaining, after the endless online and tv explaining about how this risk grows, they just don’t comprehend it? Or could they be so selfish as to decide it was worth the risk of infecting my over-80s grandparents? At this point do I care or do I just go and set their house on fire?

Anyway, all of this sunk in and I flung off texts to my sisters and parents. The most sympathetic sister called me and we drunk talked for over an hour. I was crying, I was struggling to talk, I don’t know how obvious it was. She agrees with my assessment of increased risk but she doesn’t seem to know what to do with it. The rest of the family ignored me. 

I then took a big gamble and shot off a facebook message to my mum’s other sister and my cousin. I needed to see if I was nuts but they were on the same page as me, thank god. They’ve asked me to call my grandparents and try to talk some sense into them. Which I’m going to try to do but I’m terrified. 

I’m potentially causing a big family drama that could hurt my grandparents to try to shut down the 1 in 100,000 risk they get sick from the dumbfucks. It’s making me doubt myself. But then the selfishness that underlies it is also there. The face I think this family are willfully putting my grandparents at risk for money. I wonder if I could pay them off. You know, here’s a million bucks, don’t go near them again. 

So there’s a rant. I don’t know if there’s anyone even left out there that will read it but I needed it out of my head.