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I may be a horrible person---(with a "Crazy relatives" poll)
I did something awfully awesome tonight.
I HATE talking to my grandmother on the phone. Hate.it. Hate.it.
She's always been nice to me, but she's honestly just one of the most self absorbed people I've ever met. It's just who she is. I truly believe she has a personality disorder. We get along fine in person when we have an activity (playing a board game, shopping, her teaching me a new craft, etc.) but the phone (and direct conversations) are terrible.
Yes, I'm lucky to still have grandparents. Yes, I love her. BUT that whole "you don't get to pick your family" thing is SO true.
I've been ducking her calls for 2 weeks. Tonight, I knew I had to call her back. Before I did, I made (and drank) a LARGE fruity rum drink. I think I have a new method for coping with grandma. It made it much easier to handle the three things she's famous for. These are REAL examples from tonight's call.
1. She asks me questions, but doesn't wait for and/or listen to my answers. Her questions are really just transitions into her next topic.
Example:
Gma: "So, how's Mr. Amanjay?"
Me: "He's well. He jus---."
Gma: :"Your Gpa is driving me crazy. Last week he blahblahblah"
2. She also switches from topic to topic in a tone of voice and pace as if they're perfectly logical to connect.
Example:
Gma: "So, our minister is retiring from the church. Last week he talked about how being a minister is a very lonely job. And that's why our next door neighbor's cat had kittens under the shed...."
3. She never has a kind word to say about anyone, even her best friends.
Example:
Gma: You know my best friend Elaine?
Me: No, I don't think so
Gma:Yes you do. You know---she's the one who used to live in the house that was next to where the old Dairy Queen that they tore down in 1976 was. (Note: I was born in 1979) Anyway, my best friend's daughter moved away. It's the daughter that she liked the best, so she's SO lonely. I think it's because she does literally nothing all day. She's always been a REALLY lazy person, and now that's coming back to bite her in the ass. I told her she needs to work or volunteer or something but she's too lazy. She just wants to be miserable, and it makes every one else miserable.
----
So---describe your favorite crazy relative to make me feel better, please 
Re: I may be a horrible person---(with a "Crazy relatives" poll)
HAhahaha. Great post; I really feel like I've met your grandma now. I have similar feelings about my mamaw (especially the 'never a nice thing to say' part), but she's not quite as bad, and (I know this is horrible) I rarely talk to her on the phone.
My craziest relative is definitely my MIL. When H and I started dating, she hated me, mostly b/c she was upset that H and his ex got a divorce. MIL and FIL are very conservative, and very close-minded. They couldn't comprehend that H and his ex being divorced might actually be the BEST decision for everyone involved. So, it was a rough start.
Now that H and I are married, my relationship with MIL is better. We're friendly with each other, but she's originally from New Hampshire, and just has a very cold, blunt personality. H tells me that's an East Coast thing. Not sure if I totally buy that, but I can't say I've met anyone quite like her from Oklahoma.
She's just socially inappropriate. She appears to be genuinely oblivious when things she says hurt others' feelings. She is constantly changing her opinions based on her audience. She's a totally different (more likable) person one-on-one than when several of us are around.
For example, anything involving H's siblings is exponentially more interesting than the same thing involving us.
Me: H and I have been thinking about redoing the office, because when we have a baby, we'll need it for a nursery.
MIL: Oh, when SIL and her husband start having kids, we won't be able to stay away from Oklahoma! I just can't wait!
She's constantly interfering with the way H and I parent SD. She was a pretty strict parent, but she thinks H is waaay too hard on SD (not true at all), we suspect it's because MIL and FIL see SD as a victim of the divorce.
SD: *throwing huge fit, being generally bad*
H: *spanking SD*
MIL: What was that for? She's a six-year-old, you just need to have some patience!
MIL is also a rabid OSU fan. I grew up in a Sooner family, and ended up attending and graduating from OU, which in her mind, makes us mortal enemies. I wish I had specific examples, but she basically called me a trashy moronic window-licker on FB b/c she got so wound up in a thread talking about football. I was arguing that I think you can be a fan of one team without hating another, and she was apparently offended by that. It was pretty uncomfortable for everyone involved, and she ended up sending H and I a note to apologize, but it's stuff like that all the time with her.
"I have a very strong opinion about X, because that's just the way it is." I'm all for being passionate about something, but at least know why you feel that way. And don't trample all over people you claim to love defending some random ideal because you think it makes you look smart.
Okay, this post is far too long, and it probably doesn't give a clear picture of MIL - and I should say that I do love her, she's just difficult - but at least let me say that I can relate to crazy relatives.
I would but no one has time for me to list all my family members.
Kidding. Yes. Thats my grandma too. Only thing is I NEVER talk to her other than when we go home. We don't get along. She was never a good person, let alone a grandmother. *I am aware this sounds insensitive but I believe in honesty*
Last conversation I had with her (2.5 years ago)
Me: Hello
Grandma: Wow. You lost alot of weight, did you get your boobs augmented (I did) because they look a whole lot better. You should have lost weight years ago and saved a lot of time...
Me: Okay, well I am going to go take a walk, good seeing you.
Don't get me started on my MIL.
I have more than one crazy relative, but when 'crazy' is mentioned, my brain automatically reverts to one single person:
One of my great aunts. She's been going off her rocker for years, now. Every year my mom's entire side of the family goes to Grand Lake and 'camps' over Memorial Weekend (I think I've mentioned that in the past). A couple years ago, this particular great aunt had been pulling all kinds of shenanigans. Her husband (who is a preacher) had a heart attack at home and she left him laying on the floor and went to the casino, while at the casino, she called one of her daughters and told her. She gambled away their entire life savings. And so many other things I can't even begin to describe. Off her rocker.
Back to the lake: on Saturday, a large portion of the family goes golfing, and all of Crazy Aunt's kids went. Those of us who didn't go stayed at camp and played card games and whatnot. No one had seen Crazy Aunt in a while. Once the golfers got back, we are all hanging out in the middle of our area and here she comes stumbling out of her camper. When she steps out, several empty beer cans fall out of the door behind her. She starts stumbling across the camp ground in this tshirt... she had ironed on letters to the back of this shirt that said "My family thinks I'm crazy and that I need to be committed." She did this while all of her kids were out golfing. Most of us were cracking up because it was so typical of her to pull something like that, but her kids were pisssssssed.
Side note: she wasn't drunk. She doesn't drink, at all. She'd emptied several beer cans into a pitcher and took the pitcher to my Mema's camper to hide it - hence the empty beer cans. My mom and I were watching my 13 month old cousin at the time, and went inside to fill her sippy up with juice. (I'm sure you can see where this is going.) I was changing Aydan's diaper and Mom went to the fridge to get the juice. There were two different 'juices' in there. She picked up one that was banana/pineapple something that looked gross and then there was, what we thought was, apple juice. Mom filled the sippy and gave it back to Aydan. Aydan tipped it up, kind of shuddered, and then tipped it up again and went to town on it. A few seconds later Mema came into the camper and said, "Oh, I didn't know I had apple juice" and Mom said, "yeah, this right here". She squealed and said, "THAT'S NOT APPLE JUICE!" Then she gave us a quick rundown of Crazy Aunt's doings. This all happened in the span of about a minute or so, so Aydan didn't really get that my beer. But, let me tell you, she was pissssssed when I took the sippy away from her. Pisssed.
I used to have one, but she passed away over 10 years ago. She was my aunt, my mother's SIL. She was a very unhappy person, and would project her unhappiness onto others. When I was 13, she would ask if I had a boyfriend yet and would ask my very petite 15 year-old sister if she had gained weight, in a way that made it sound like my 90 pound sister was fat. She was just unfriendly.
Granted, though, she was very ill for a very long time and her body gave out at a very early age, due to her own vanity, so her unhappiness was somewhat justified. You just learned to ignore the comments.
Now my only crazy relative is H's maternal grandmother, but she's pretty much cuckoo at this point. She's 88, I think, and is totally losing her mind. Has been for a long time. It's been sad to watch, but man, she says some weird stuff now.
I don't think you are an horrible person. I completely understand having a grandma that is exhausting to talk to. I'm sure that fruity drink came in handy.
I had typed out a bunch of stuff about my overly crazy family, but deleted it because it's just too much craziness. My mom's family is the craziest and my dad's side has a few thrown in. So to say I come from a long line of pretty crazy people. From the grandma who thinks people live within her walls, to the drunk aunt at family functions, to my cousin who thinks it's appropriate to dawn black face for Halloween, and round it out with my crazy SIL who call the cops on my brother and ran away with my niece to a batter women's shelter.
Oh my Lord. Best thread ever.
Um, I don't think I really have any. I love my grandmother so much but when my grandfather died about three years ago (love him so much too), her health and everything just really started to go downhill and as horrible as it sounds, I just can't deal with it very well so I have stopped calling. My uncles are all over me about it but it just makes me too sad.
You all have heard plenty of stories about my mother and my MIL/SIL. My mom pretty much makes everything about her and has this really great way of turning everything around so that she is the victim. I haven't really talked to her in two or three years so I don't have any good stories but an example of what she is like is this:
Her: Do you want a brownie?
Me: Yes - hold on - it only needs to be about half that size.
Her: Well. Don't you just love to shove it in anyone's face that you are oh so skinny and we are all fat.
DH: What the hell?
*head desk*
And my MIL is good for some interesting comments. She informed me one time that she was so surprised law school is so hard based on what she saw on Legally Blonde. I thought DH was going to throat punch her.
But as far as wild, crazy stories, I don't have any. I avoid my family like the plague.