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Monday, December 26, 2005

The brother who stole Christmas

I'm famous for being melancoly on my birthday and after Christmas. I look forward to these events with child like anticipation and when the reality of the celebration kicks in I get twangs of jelousy over my perception of what others are experiencing. Mind you, none of these feelings are warranted - I am simply being selfish. This year however, I think the cloud living in my heart is justified.

As mentioned earlier, my mom called two weeks ago to let me know my brother, his (non-Morman) wife and their two girls were coming up from Utah for Christmas. Woo hoo - this kicked the planning and shopping into high gear. Mom actually had snack food in the house when I arrived. Normally the fridge is stocked with Christmas dinner and that's it. Three days of PB&J then a HUGE yummy meal, and then left overs until someone sneaks out to McD's.

Upon arrival to M&D's I was impressed by the spread, a table of munchies, presents stacked as high as they could manage and an air of excitement. Around nine o'clock Mom decided to call big bro on his cell phone to see where they were. It went straight to voice mail, so she called his home phone to leave a message and he PICKED UP THE PHONE. I've never really seen Ma go from hurt to pissed and back to hurt in such short time. Brother dear claimed he never called to say they were coming.

Now, I know that I'm supposed to keep my anger to myself and put on a good face or at least not air family grievences in public - but come on... to claim you didn't call is BULL SHIT. It galls me that Mr. Wonderful thinks that he can pretend he didn't call and try to make my parents believe that they concocted the idea that he was coming. The crazy thing is that I"m sure by now he believes he didn't call, he has a gift for revisionist history.

Well, brother dear - we were genuinely disapointed that you weren't able to come our way, but the fact that you couldn't be a grown up and call and that you felt like you had to lie about it makes you an ass hole. You hurt mom to the core and the last time I saw her cry like that was when her dad died. Merry Christmas to you too!

If you want to be the grown up that I know you can be, you should call and apologize. Mom wants nothing more than to not be treated like a fool. She will forgive you.

As for the rest of the family, they all asked about you, but hid their embarassement at your actions. I promise you that you were not hung out to dry either. Mom calmly explained that both she and dad must have made a mistake when they talked with someone who sounded like you, who had a wife named Denise and had two girls.

If you don't honestly remember making this phone call, you need to call your doctor, or check into re-hab.

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