NOTE: This entry starts out incredibly depressing, but my favorite funny thing that I always forget to tell you is at the end. This isn’t a complete sobfest. I promise.
So tomorrow is my Dad’s surgery. Ten hours away.
My dad demanded Ted Drewes tonight. Ted Drewes and Imo’s. It was cute to see him enjoying it, but so unbelievably morbid when you think about it. There has to be a German word for the range of emotions I experienced watching him eat that dinner. Ugh.
I haven’t cried in front of my family yet and I am determined not to do it. A few years ago I would have been on the phone all night crying to my boyfriend. I couldn’t go that route anymore even if I wanted to.* So here is how I have been coping:
My sister-in-law and I have not always had the best relationship. It has been going surprisingly well this week, but usually it causes me complete blind rage. This is the kind of crap that makes me run 8 miles at once. The kind that makes me violent. The kind I can’t even blog about, because I would get that much angrier if I saw it onscreen. So anyway. The next four facts describe our relationship perfectly:
1. I bought her The Office Season 2 for her birthday, because I don’t think anything has ever made me laugh more and I wanted to share that with her.
2. For MY birthday, she sent Employee of the Month, staring Dane Cook and Jessica Simpson, with zero percent irony.**
3. I actually sat through Employee of the Month, just to give it a chance and experience whatever “joy” she was trying to share with me. It is still on my movie shelf, albeit backwards so no one can read the title.
4. I just found out that she RETURNED The Office Season 2. She just straight up told me with zero remorse.
I don’t know if it’s my love for The Office? My love of, you know, funny things and life and all that is great? The flippant way she told me? But something about this made me so incredibly angry. Again: blind rage.
So now every time I am about to cry in front of my family and my eyes brim and the floodgates are about to open (and if you’ve ever seen me upset, then you know it’s basically Hurricane Katrina on my face) I think about her returning The Office, and me sitting through Employee of the Month, and how cute Jim and Pam are, and ME SITTING THROUGH EMPLOYEE OF THE MONTH, and my eyes dry up immediately. The mix of sadness and anger completely balances me out, to the point where I am completely normal.
So thank you. Thank you Dane Cook. Thank you Dax Sheppard. Thank you Jessica Simpson and Pedro from Napoleon Dynamite. Thank you for making a terrible movie that makes me the opposite of a cry-baby.
Man, I can’t even remember what it feels like to need someone the way I used to need my ex-boyfriend. I don’t remember what it feels like to love him or miss him the way I did, so intensely and for so long. In hindsight, he must not’ve cheered me up that quickly if I stayed on the phone crying for hours. But I do remember him comforting me and calming me down instantly. I don’t remember how, or why.
While I love being able to deal with things my own way and channel the negative (blind rage) into something good (no crying), it would be nice to have something that magical tonight. Just for a minute or two. Just to help me fall asleep. But at least I know how to get along without it.
This is in big part to all the support and prayers and stories that you guys have shared with me. You know who you are, and just know that it meant a lot to me when you said it and it means even more to me right now. Really, it means the world. Thank you.
(I am going to feel like such an asshole tomorrow when this all turns out okay.)
*Gentlemen, let this be a testament to how much I respect Monday Night Poker at the Nortfort. (But obviously, this is the type of detail I will bring up in an argument three years from now, if we are still dating, to demonstrate how amazing and saintly I am.)
(I call these details “Vagina Bucks”.)
**Her favorite Star Wars character of all time, hand to God, is Jar Jar Binks. This is so absurd that it circles all the way around to being lovable, somehow.
Secretly Stephie 
I MIGHT have to add you to my “Heroes” section on MySpace for this post. I’m still mulling it over.
So I guess your sister-in-law doesn’t read Shortcake…
Wow, that’s pretty bad taste. Returning The Office AND purchasing Employee of the Month? Unforgivable. Liking Jar Jar? Unbelievable. Based on this track record, I’m guessing she probably owns the Heidi Montag album.
On the plus side, I can see how crying in front of her would be defeating. Stay strong, good taste demands it.. (and a double cool points for the Grand Theft Auto reference.)
I have a few rules about giving and receiving gifts, myself. These are the ones I can recall off the top of my head:
1) Never give a gift certificate or cash.
2) Never ask for gift certificates or cash.
3) Only return a gift given you in one of the following cases: A)You’ve got one just like it already, and it’s not something anyone needs more than one of, B)The giver insists that you return/exchange it if you don’t like it or think you might like something better BEFORE seeing your reaction to it, or gives it with an unequivocal expression of uncertainty as to whether you’ll even like it or not. Usually even in this case, I won’t return something, though.
4) If one of the points in #3 ends up being true, and you return/exchange a gift, don’t return/exchange it for cash or a gift certificate.
5) Don’t re-gift. Either the giver, the receiver, or perhaps even both, is bound to find out, but even if they don’t, that’s just weak.
6) Don’t “wrap” a gift using a gift bag and tissue paper. Go whole-hog, wrapping-paper-and-ribbon-and/or-a-bow-and-maybe-even-a-box-style.
I don’t always necessarily expect people to follow these rules in giving gifts to me, but the whole experience of gifting is always a million times more satisfying for me (whether as giver or receiver) when these rules are followed on the parts of both parties. You can’t make peoples’ decisions fer ’em, though!
In short, pretty weak that homegirl returned your gift and was totally candid about it. Nice that it allowed you fodder for later coping with somewhat unrelated circumstances, though!
Your sister-in-law’s lack of appreciation of the Office and Star Wars is nauseating. It’s just further evidence of how little you have in common.
I hope your father’s surgery went well. My thoughts are with you!
Thanks guys.
I think the part that pissed me off the most about that gift, which I forgot to mention before, is that a few years ago she bought my mom a spa/massage thing for her birthday. My mom told her thank you, but she actually gets ooked out by massages. My sister-in-law was LIVID about this and called my brother in IRAQ about it and he sent my mom a stern letter about how she hurt his wife’s feelings. And yet, straight up told me she returned it. So throw “Complete Hypocracy” and “Making My Mom Sad/Me Hommicidal” into the mix.
Blinded… by… rage… omg. I could dedicate a whole seperate blog to this subject alone.
I don’t have time to write an actual entry, but my dad is doing awesome! I saw him this morning and am about to go see him again… he is awake and looks pretty damn good. Thanks again for all the support and virtual hugs.
Good to hear of course!
And, that is just cringe-inducing about the spa/massage thing. Maybe you should have sorta freaked out on her, and in a fit of “rage” brought that up. “…and the worst thing is, it might not even be that bad, but when you got that massage thing for my mom a few years ago and she didn’t like it…!!!” et cetera.
I’m glad your dad is doing ok. I’m sorry about your sis in law, and I know the pain your going through with her. Maybe one day she and my sis in law “MEG” (she looks like meg and talks like meg from family guy, but more of a c and pathological liar) and there will be a small implosion of sorts when 2 worlds collide. And regarding your sis, I’m still pissed over the cat-sitting fiasco of years before. I honestly should’ve left the cat puke on the kitchen floor. 😉
So glad to hear your Dad is doing well pal! Less than glad to hear about this crummy sister-in-law business. Just try to remind yourself how lame it would be to go through life being that oblivious to both cool shit and personal relationship etiquette.