All in the Family

With my Big Ticket items off of my emotional checklist, I could focus on other things: my taxes, Spring Break, updating my shoe wardrobe.

J. still had a full plate - piled high with the need to have his family hear him out. Just to be heard. Not to change anything. It was clear that the dye had been cast (in that alarming shade of raspberry sherbet!)

He called his mother to see if there was any possibility of a family fireside chat. She didn't exactly jump at the idea, but did seem to be listening (or at least not actively arguing). A few weeks had passed. Maybe there had been some reflection on the situation. Maybe there had been a few confessions to the hairdresser, a lunch with the Widows Club, a hand or two of pinochle with some friends, where someone, someone, by the grace of God, shared an objective dissenting opinion - and the other ladies had nodded their little blue-haired heads in agreement.

J. and Endora inched toward the DMZ.

"I would like to get over to watch the kids in some way again," she said. "Maybe a day or two a week." J. took that gesture as an olive branch. Perhaps an acknowledgement of some culpability in our going so far off course.

Or not.

The day of the shower arrived. Em, even with nary a brain cell pinging around in her spacious head, had managed to see through the ploy, and purposefully, admittedly, kept 100 ladies waiting for 45 minutes. I would have showered her with more than happiness, I can tell you that. J.'s girls were among the guests marvelling at every crock pot and towel set and negligee and reported that the party was nothing to write home about, just another obligation on the road to the Big Day.

To J.'s mom, it was Mardi Gras. She raved on and on about every detail (omitting of course Em's socially reprehensible intentional tardiness) including that Sandy had sent a generous gift. And that by comparison, she'd taken note that there was no gift there from me.

And Endora, cleared for takeoff, is on her broom and riding once again.

Truth be told, I had a gift. A lovely, creative, generous, thoughtful gift. I'd put more effort into its selection and purchase than I should have. But a gift is a reflection of me, and that my friends, is something I don't take lightly. No, it was not waiting at the shower to be opened in front of hundreds of pairs of eyes, wide with anticipation. How was I supposed to get her gift to the shower? The bride, and in fact all of Sheila's grown children, inclusive of the ones with college degrees and steady paychecks, live at home. Surely delivering the gift to the house would have "spoiled" the surprise (and would have been yet another thing to blame me for). I'd planned all along to send it with J. to Em's birthday dinner the following week. ("It's my last birthday as an O'Malley! Aaawwwwww!") Excuse me for not twisting myself into a pretzel making an effort to get it there in advance. I think we all understand why.

It was becoming clear. Everything I would do, from now until every stakeholder was too old and feeble minded to remember this whole wedding fiasco, was going to be subject to wide spread familial scrutiny. I was the family Meathead.

Not to worry though. Because I, like Michael Stivic, had been criticized, and more often lauded, by far, far better people than these. Far better people than these.

Those were the days.