As my kids age they become more and more like me, I look at it as a good thing but it is hard enough for Shirley to deal with one of me, now facing the prospect of three of me, she may lose her mind. The latest example of them morphing into me is the scheduled birthday party for Shirley’s niece, Riley (Ry Ry) yes that’s what her parents call her and its kind of annoying. Their oldest is Maddy and her nickname was Madders, quite creative. I never got into nicknames with my kids, name calling, yes, nicknames no. Regardless, the birthday party is this Friday night and my kids decided they don’t want to go, I don’t want to go either primarily because I don’t like hanging out at other peoples houses but also because they are vegetarians (which I have mentioned before) and they never have enough food and they never have any meat. Meat eaters must accommodate vegetarians but the reverse is not required of those who prefer a plant based diet. The kids came to me first with their complaint and I could have put the fire out by stating that I was looking forward to it and that it will be fun. However, I prefer not to lie to my kids unless it directly benefits me. I went on to state why in my opinion the parties at their aunt’s house are underwhelming and indicated that I felt it was weird that their aunt invites friends to the birthday party along with family members. Last night as we were going to bed things came to a head with the kids finally indicating to Shirley that they did not want to go the party. Shirley initially kept her cool but as the kids named off all the reasons they did not want to attend the shindig she felt as if she was being attacked due to her loyalty to anyone related to her regardless of how weird they are or indefensible their actions may be. Ultimately, she told the kids they would have to call their aunt and tell her why they were not attending the monumental 4th birthday party of their cousin. Obviously they were not going to do that, not sure they have ever spoken on the phone to her, they do call my sister eight to ten times a week wondering what time she is going to arrive at our house with her five kids or at green lake with her five kids.

I explained to Shirley that I felt it was strange that her sister invited friends to the party when it should just be family. I went on to mention that when I was growing up the entire extended family did not gather to celebrate every single birthday but that we lumped four or five together to celebrate. She responded by stating that my family was weird, to which I agreed wholeheartedly. The problem with Shirley is she can not step back and view what her family does and gain any type of perspective on some of their peculiar behaviors. I tried to give an example of us having our friends over with their kids along with her family to celebrate one of our kid’s birthdays but she refused to allow me to continue with the argument because we wouldn’t do that and the friend her sister was inviting over was so close to her she was like a third sister. Sorry, that may be the case, but she’s not an aunt in my kid’s minds and their kids aren’t their cousins.

An additional example of how out of whack my wife’s families’ birthday celebrations have grown occurred this past summer. Her sister who is hosting the party Friday has an August birthday. Shirley rarely speaks to me during the week and failed to mention the fish fry at my in laws to celebrate her sister’s birthday had been moved from Tuesday to Wednesday. Yes, somehow fish are on the menu even though they are vegetarians. Not sure how you can feel morally superior to meat eaters if you are into seafood but they somehow still do. I had moved my pickleball match from Tuesday to Wednesday to allow me to attend the fish fry. I learned from my mother-in-law, not my wife, the fish fry had been moved. Shirley told me I needed to call my sister-in-law to see if it was ok that I didn’t attend her birthday fish fry to play pickleball. I was about to do so until I found out her husband wasn’t attending either. I was tempted to cancel pickleball to show that I am a much better family member than her husband by attending the fish fry but decided that while I am, no one will think my attendance establishes that point. Covid was a godsend to my brother-in-law, he rarely leaves the house, especially on weeknights and being forced to stay home by the government was possibly the best thing that ever happened to him.

Still raging from her kids turning on her family, Shirley proceeded to tell me that the story I relayed to her about a furry at Forest Hills Central requesting a litter box to pee in was merely an urban myth, emphasizing that I was an idiot for believing such a tall tale. I had heard the story straight from the horse’s mouth so to speak, in that my buddy actually spoke to a teacher at the school who told him that they are accommodating furries and that there is a trans bathroom that his kids take a dump in because it’s clean. His youngest was caught dropping a deuce by the security guard and told him he identifies as “they”. Furries, transgenders, people who use fourteen pronouns, they are all fucked up in my opinion and should be forced to live in California and the UP. I would imagine there is a state that doesn’t put up with this kind of shit, but I don’t feel like moving to Texas. Of note is the fact that Shirley followed up last night’s conversation by sending me a couple of articles indicating the litter box thing is BS and I passed along the articles to my friend who still wears it really happened. My response to Shirley was that the litter box thing may be inaccurate but they are still serving up cat nip and milk bones in the FHC cafeteria.