Do you have a family? You may think yourself lucky. There are, as we are solemnly aware in this season of credit card debt, many people who've lost other people, or who never had them in the first place. & if you think that's a bummer, you may know be coming to this realization: holy crap in a blanket, I'm going to have to spend the next few days with my family!
Family, as it probably says in the Bible or something, is like a tumor: most are benign. But no one really wants to get a tumor, not even as a conversation starter or a reason to take the day off for elective surgery & the biopsy party that night. (There are, as Oscar Wilde once noted, better reasons to have a party.)
Yet we must ask ourselves in this season of homophobic Salvation Army bell ringers: what if our family is malignant? Who's going to tell Mom? Does it have to be me? Below is a list, gathered from the sages of ages & some Family Circus cartoons, of ways to survive the time with the family at least until there are better prescription pills.
1) Choose to hear the most common offensive remarks (racist, misogynistic, jingoistic, etc.) in the context of an anthropologist visiting from the future. Perhaps write a few of them down.
2) Give useless advice to one family member & then say another family member told you to tell them that.
3) One is often told to stay away from touchy subjects like religion & politics. However, you do not have to avoid them; instead, brush up before the holidays on obscure ancient religions & the politics of dead civilizations.
4) Respond to most queries with a smile & a wink.
5) In situations where a drunken or old (or both) family member is about to tell the same story they've told every year, pay attention like you've never done before, often exclaiming things like, "Ooo, I know this one! It's a good 'un!"
6) Don't be so rude by listening to music on your mp3 player or texting all the time on your phone. Be so rude by pretending to fall asleep while sitting at a table.
7) Have short poems from amateur internet "poetry" sites printed on pieces of paper. Give them to family members & say, "This made me think of you." Or, if the poem is exceptionally bad, say, "Can you tell me what this means?"
8) Weather permitting, position yourself always just out of earshot.
9) Hug family members quickly, often muttering words of consolation, then pretend to be distracted by something else & move on.
10) Continue that search for those better prescription pills.
Happy holidays & stuff from Self Help Radio!
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