Trifecta? Is that how you spell it?

Let’s just go ahead and move to another cliche power blog topic Cats! Body hatred! called Daddy Issues.

About three or four weeks ago my sister (who is the only other sibling that lives in this state) asked me if I was going to Dad’s for Easter. Hmm, not invited yet. No matter, I was sure to get an uncomfortable cell phone call in which I will stare at the caller ID and debate 1) getting it over with, or 2) sending to voicemail and seeing if I can respond via email. But, here we are, Easter morn’ and noooo invite.

Relieved? Or sort of pissed off and confused?

The Cast:

My Dad: Quiet talker, weird guy, not much to talk about, must script conversations and have mental lists of dinner conversation topics.
My brand new step mother (number 2): Very strange, extremely nervous, generous and selfish at the same time (all generosity comes with a huge undertone of “so love me now, okay?”), ditto on the scripting and topic-listing.

Dinner at Dad’s always has to come with what us kids refer to as “a buffer zone.” There must be at least two siblings there so that someone else can use their list of topics when the silence booms. My sister is especially good at this because her relationship with Dad is seven zillion times better than mine, and she’s good at just talking. Endlessly, god love her. The addition of the spouses helps too, hers is a storyteller and a salesman so he’s got the charm factor, and Hubs is cute and funny and has quirky “My own parents are nuts, here’s what they did recently” stories. So, buffer zone good.

Unfortunately for at least two reasons, Sister’s dog is getting his testicles whacked off today, and one of them is still up in non-hangey-down land so there needs to be supervision post-op. For a month now I’ve been dreading the uncomfortable silence cell phone call in which I would have to come up with an excuse for not coming. No buffer zone! I can’t emotionally deal with it otherwise! The excuses were going to be:

• We’re going to my Mom’s
• We’re taking a weekend road trip to California to be with Hubs’ parents
• And as it got closer: We thought we weren’t invited so we made other plans. (Though I would never say that, I would just think it and imagine them riddled with child-forgotten guilt)

But I never got the call. Not on my cell, not on Hubs’, not on the Skype…nothing. Come to think of it, we’ve had no contact with them since Christmas. Why? Even though I like it, I don’t like being not liked. I don’t like not knowing what I did, because I’m neurotic and need everyone to LIKE ME.

Reasons they might be mad at us:

1. I didn’t want Dad to walk me down the aisle at my wedding. But seriously, the whole “being given away” by someone who was only there for me every other weekend since I was 4 doesn’t seem right. I’m an independent lady and wanted to walk by myself. I didn’t want to be given away at all, it wasn’t personal.
2. We didn’t thank them enough for their monetary contribution to our wedding, though there were so many strings attached to it that we almost didn’t want it. It came in the mail, like a business payment, and my Mom’s much smaller contribution meant mountains more than theirs. They keep thinking we can be bought, or something.
3. We didn’t thank them enough for giving us a discount on the home we bought from Stepmom2, though by the end of it I wanted to stick hot pokers in their eyes because of the house instead of thanking them, but more on that later.
4. Stepmom2 said (about the locks on the house) “Well, I have a key, your Dad has a key, my sister has a key, and my son has a key, but I wouldn’t worry about changing the locks” and then we did. Immediately after moving in.
5. We didn’t thank them enough for all the “free stuff” we got with the house. More on this later too.
6. I don’t call
7. I don’t appreciate the endless, stupid, religious/funny picture/joke of the day forwarded emails I get all the time from both of them. And, I might add, I saw these funny pictures and heard the jokes when they were fresh/funny/new three years ago.
8. Some other passive-aggressive reason that they haven’t said but are surely stewing about.

Reasons we’re mad at them that they probably know about:

1. They totally crashed the wedding rehearsal to take pictures with their disgustingly overpriced cameras that scream in everyone’s face, “We’re selfish and have a lot of money!”
2. All of the “free stuff” we got with the house, was all the shit that Stepmom2 just LEFT THERE when she moved in with my dad. There were also a lot of things that didn’t fall under the “If you want it you can have it, otherwise just donate it” umbrella, and:

• • I ended up packing up her things the day before we moved in because she wouldn’t.
  • Hubs moved her things for her taking out 4-5 hours of the moving day,
  • The truck she promised we could use had to leave with her son as soon as her things were moved,
  • The place was such an unholy mess of mold, cat shit strewn about, and other hidden gems of destruction that had been hidden from us that I wanted to scream at her. I wanted to walk away from the whole thing.

I could go on forever about how mad I am about this. The “discount” didn’t pay for all the work I have done and am continuing to do. The litter box that she kept in the master bedroom closet and the surrounding area are so bad that no matter how much I shampoo the carpet and wash the walls, it will forever smell like litter and cat piss, and the carpet has literally been worn away by the chemical mess that was sitting there.

Reasons we’re mad that they probably don’t even realize because they are too stupid:

1. They got engaged and married during our engagement. They caused financial hardship and many of the family members invited to both couldn’t come to my wedding because they had to pay for the plane ticket to Dad’s. This is his third wedding and her second…couldn’t you wait 6 months so that I could have my grandmother at my one and only special wedding day?
2. Stepmom2 shoved my Mother out of the way in many of our wedding pictures so that she could be standing next to me. That enrages me. I don’t know you, and I would rather you’re not in these pictures at all. You didn’t raise 6 children on a preschool teacher’s salary and should be granted sainthood, get out of my Mother’s way, damnit.
3. They promised this cool mirror to us, and never delivered. It’s sitting in their pile of expensive crap in the basement that they’ll never use.
4. Stepmom2 never gave us the second garage door opener so she could break into our house any day
5. Stepmom2 offered to pay 300 bucks to get the carpets cleaned because she realized a tiny bit of how dirty the house got. She said “I would feel good about giving that to you.” She never paid for it.
6. They mention that the fridge in our kitchen is not included in the sale of the house and ask us if we’re “Ready to get rid of it” as if it’s a huge burden. Then they never take it.
7. I hate those goddamn forwarded emails. I hate them. Make them stop.
8. My father did not call, email, send a card, or otherwise wish me a happy birthday this year. Again. For the second year in a row. But he does remember to send out those forwards

A sidebar on that last one, one of the only reasons I was hoping for the invite and may have actually gone to Easter dinner was to talk about how I had to go on a business trip over my birthday and hopefully they would go “OH! Your birthday!” and feel bad and do something to make me feel better about being completely ignored by my father on the day of my birth. But they would probably just nod and smile and we would move on to the next subject and I would feel even worse.

I’m going to go ahead and stop there because the rage bubbles more the more I write. So, Easter Sunday will be…I don’t know. Watching DVDs of TV shows, not eating chocolate, and not wondering why they didn’t call.

***

So, back to being fat. I didn’t mention my eating plan I put in place to help with the whole “Eat the world” problem that I tend to have. Breakfast and lunch I do okay, but dinner sucks balls.

So here’s the plan:

• Take 1 cup measuring cup
• Measure one cup of dinner
• Eat.
• If I want more, I have to wait 30 minutes.

Pretty simple, but hopefully it will help.

Lots of numbers and bullet points in this one. That’s when you know there’s rage.