Every family has that ONE person (well, some have more than one) that always make large family get-togethers interesting (okay - dysfunctional - I'm trying to be nice here).  Ya'll might think that the interesting person in my "ex-family-Thanksgiving-reunion-get-together-why-would-I-be-there-in-the-first-place" would be ME.  You might think that . . . and you might be right, but excuse me.  I'm in denial.  I prefer to think that the current wife is that interesting person that brings a little bit of trailer trash (hey - I lived in a trailer park once - I can say that), annoying and general troublemaking traits to the family dynamic.  She reminds me of a mean Cousin Eddie in my favorite movie of all time, Christmas Vacation.

 

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Clark: Can I refill your eggnog for you? Get you something to eat? Drive you out to the middle of nowhere and leave you for dead?
Eddie: Naw, I'm doing just fine, Clark.

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Well, current wife - I'll refer to as Ritch.  I take her first name and combine it with the most appropriate adjective that I can conjure up.  Oooh - and I'm so good that it even has the same number of letters.  I digress.

 

Last year, when I went to this family feast, everything went swimmingly well.  I had a great time!  She was either sleeping, outside smoking or drunk rendering her incapable of a lucid conversation the whole time, thus making the visit bearable for all. 

This year, ex forbid her to drink.  Although she did sneak a few of my beers from my cooler.  I caught her sneaking them to her room the first day there.  Normally, I would have said something to someone who has a liver disease, as she does, and suggested that they keep their grubby paws out of my cooler and kill themselves on their own dime. . . but this is Ritch we're talking about.  I was like "Suuuurrrree!  Help yourself!" thinking "she'll be asleep soon - yay".   That worked well the first day and all was great.  Apparently, she had a more difficult time sneaking them the next day thus leaving her semi-concious and trying to blend.  Sober or not, the woman is STILL loopy as Hell!  We'd all be having a conversation and then she would mumble something that a.) we couldn't half understand, and b.) had absolutely nothing to do with what we were all talking about leaving us all scratching our heads like "Huh?".  She's a crackpot.  I just laughed on the inside thinking the whole time how great Karma is.  It's a lovely thing.

 

Then the next day, she was entirely more sober than we all would have liked and more concious and was wanting. to. make. some. trouble.  All these years, I had no idea how much she hated my children.  All these years, I never realized that she had been trying to drive a wedge between my children and their dad.  I mean, I knew that the kids didn't like HER, but they were always polite.  They just didn't like her on the inside.  I never realized how adolescent SHE was.  All this time, she has been pitting them against each other. . . or more the Ex against the kids.  She was pretty successful with my youngest for several years there (in his late teen years), but they've mended that rift to a large degree.  Now she's working on my oldest.  And it worked.  At least over the weekend. 

Ex flipped out on the boys about how they were treating his dog - with Ritch's encouragement.  She had been exaggerating how they were trying to get the ping pong balls out of its mouth as the dog was eating them saying that they were plain being "mean" to her.  He flipped out and SCREAMED, "Don't EVER come to my house again!"  First off, ex does NOT scream.  Ever.  I've never heard him scream in the 25 years that I've known him.  Second, there was no "leave the dog alone" or "do you think you could be nicer to the dog" or "why don't ya'll stay away from the dog".  Nope.  It went straight to "Don't EVER some to my house again!"  Stunning.  (Are you following the encouragement?)  Then he bounded up stairs and out the door and on his way, he barked something at me that I didn't understand.  I grabbed the last two words - "grow up", but nothing before that.  Then he was out the door.  I had been talking to my mother-in-law and we just stared at each other not knowing what was going on.  Brother-in-law went down to the playroom to find out the story and came up and said that ex was mad at my oldest.  I remember telling mom-in-law, "Whew.  I'm glad he was screaming at Chris and not Adam because Chris will just blow it off.  Adam will take it to heart and nothing good will come out of that."  He's my sensitive child and there's a sensitive line drawn between them already. . . due to Ritch's previous troublemaking skills.

As it turns out, brother-in-law was wrong and he HAD screamed at both of them.  And I was right.  Nothing good was going to become of it.  When Adam's heart is broken, he just shuts down.  Climbs into his own little world and stays until he's over it.  Only now that he's older, it takes longer for him "to get over it".

 

We left early the next morning.  A day earlier than planned.

 

As it turns out, apparently, I was the only person in the family with blinders on.  I knew that I didn't like her.  I knew she was nasty.  But I thought it was just me.  BUT they ALL have her number and they apologized for her behavior (even though it wasn't their apology that was needed).  In fact, one of the sister-in-laws REALLY has an opinion and SHE ROCKS!  She encouraged the boys not to let their dad's yelling at them keep them apart and in fact, be MORE diligent in staying in his life as that is what Ritch hates most of all.  I like her perspective.  Oldest jumped right onboard with that line of thinking.  Youngest has got to think about it awhile.

 

Other than the drama that ended the weekend early, it was a very nice trip.  I LOVE everybody there (with that one exception) and they love me.  I love it! 

 

I guess 25 people under one roof for four days is just asking for drama.