Lord, I was born a ramblin' man....

I have two sisters. The younger one, as you know, is married to a scumbag. The older one is married to a nice guy who is the polar opposite of the gold digging jackass. My sisters, like their husbands, are polar opposites. So, when it comes time to deal with both of them for something, like my dad's upcoming 75th birthday, I a man can easily go insane.

We were discussing toasts and the idiot sister wants to have her deadbeat husband film the kids talking about their papa. This is great. Brilliant idea. He'll do the interviews, he'll ask them all questions, he'll edit the video and he'll present it.

Say what?

That was my sister's suggestion.


Seriously.


So, I figured, I'd be the one to ask the big question. "Who the fuck wants to get up in the middle of the meal and watch a long video?"

It isn't a party with a bunch of people there. It's just us. A video would be the most unwelcome thing ever.

So, I suggested something different. "How about each kid gets up, starting with the youngest or the oldest, and talks about what Papa means to them and what they have done and experienced with him over the number of years they've been around."

I then explained that, after each kid takes a turn, we will each, in turn, get up and do the same thing, with the oldest wrapping it up with an explanation that, while only celebrating 75 years, he has been touching lives for an accumulation of 174 years - or some shit like that.

Both sisters loved the idea. I then suggested that each kid could give a little, silly gift that compliments their speech. My daughter, for example, would give a piece of 7 layer cake from the diner because that is something he has been doing with her, alone, for as long as she can remember.

They loved it.

Then, my idiot sister calls my wife to make plans so the kids can practice. I point out that they are not doing this together and, as of Monday, we had not written anything so practicing would be pointless. My wife calls my sister, explains this to her, she says she agrees, thought it might be nice to get the kids together to work on the toast, etc.

My wife points out that the concept is for each kid to talk about why Papa is special to them.

She says she gets it.

Then she emails me, asking me if I want to bounce ideas for the kids' speeches via email since I'm too busy to get together. I explain that this is an each kid thing and I cannot write her kids' speeches but, perhaps, she and her husband would know more about their kids' relationship with their grandfather than I would.

She responds with "perfection!"

I don't know what that means. I'm expecting this moron to go and do a video forcing me to rewrite my own speech off the cuff.

Another lovely aspect of this birthday and all family birthdays has been the group gift thing. My sisters are cheap fucks and they love to chip in for gifts. I have no problem with this, provided the gift is a good one. When it sucks and it's cheap for three to give it, count me out.

So, I came up with a great idea for my dad and, since my sisters wanted to chip in, I told them what it was. I had my wife research the thing, find the perfect one and then get me a good price.

Then my older sister had to do her own research. She spent two full days doing this. Checking out every variety, even seeing the same model in different stores, to ensure that the salesperson was giving her good intel. She would call me and discuss the things she saw but she cannot figure out how to email links so she would call me up, with the website up on her screen and she'd start reading me the link, the bazillion fucking numbers and letters and symbols.com and after a week of this, she and I agreed that the gift was a good one. Now we needed to find out how much my younger sister was planning on spending.

I send my sister an email, explaining what we found and the various models and styles and this is the price for this one, this is the price for that one and I think this one is perfect and so on and how much do you want to spend so I can get my wife in on the price negotiation and my sister responds with "great! I'll make calls and see who I know that can get us one."

She doesn't know anyone in this arena. She works for a fucking clothing label. She deals with jappy clothes and jappy women and, yet, she thinks she has connections to everything. She always claims to get a discount on all items and she has never, ever come through. Matter of fact, the one time she did have something that I wanted and she actually said she'd get it for me, I gave her a check for $240 for a boatload of tee shirts in all different colors and I never got the shirts.

Or my money back.


So, I email her, explaining that I need to know if she likes what I picked out and, if so, what her budget is.

She emails back that she loves it and she knows someone who knows someone and then she responds to something in the first email that is totally unrelated.

She does this. She answers one part of an email, prompting a response, then she responds to another part of the first email, even though the second email might actually have clarified that.

And so it goes, round and round, with her. I wind up on the phone with both of my sisters. The older one talks about the gift idea for an hour straight. The younger one says "I like it, should I call my friends and see who we know.." We interrupt her, explaining that we have a very good connection for these things and all she needs to do is say yes or no and how much money she wants to spend.

For 3 days we do this.

After hours on the phone with my older sister, she will call back and raise one more point that she has already covered to death, twice.

It's annoying to no end.

Then, finally, my sister understands it all. She tells us what her budget is.


So we get the "cheaper" one. It's very nice but, to be totally honest, I'd have paid that amount myself. Also, we wound up getting it from the manufacturer as they are selling them cheaper than any store. This means, should a problem arise, we are stuck with the company, not a store.

Once we cleared this up, and I agreed to spend about 1/3 of what I was planning on spending, they started talking about my aunt's birthday and how we should chip in, with another relative, to get her something.

I immediately said no. I explained that I felt it was better if we did our own thing from now on. They agreed and then my younger sister emails my wife and says she found the perfect gift, it's $200 and Bobby (the 4th relative) was on board and "do we want to chip in?"

Seriously. She did that. For starters, this is a close aunt, someone who her kids and my older sister's kids have spent plenty of time with (they have a home upstate and my sisters have spent plenty of weekends with them - we've never been able to go). She should spend more than $66 and three on the gift is a dick move to the fourth and my sister doesn't get it because she's cheap, she's stupid and she's got no fucking clue about common courtesy.

Why are so many fat people coming here? Seriously. There are tons of them - literally. They waddle around in groups, taking up large swaths of sidewalk, making it impossible to walk home a nice brisk pace.

Where do these fat people come from? Is there some travel agency that caters to porkers? Do they offer larger beds, donuts on your pillow instead of a small chocolate mint? They aren't even all from the states.

I can tell.

Seriously. I can walk behind tourists and, without hearing a word, tell you where they come from. I can spot Germans a mile away. I can point out the goobers and the rednecks and the region they came from.

Sure, I can't always tell you the state but bible belt, Midwest, southwest, etc? Not a problem.

For the most part, they're all getting larger. Sure, some aren't, like the Asian tourists and those cute Japanese girls with their funky clothes.

And the cheesy Midwesterners? Fat dudes with their slightly heavy (on their way to being fat) wives and their under dressed daughters? What the fuck is that all about? Did someone say to them "yer going to New York? Your husband needs to wear a too tight muscle shirt to scare away all the criminals, you need to wear a cowboy hat and you and your daughter need to wear skirts so short your pussy dangles out the bottom, like they do on Sex and the City. They all dress like that there."

No, we don't.

If you come here dressed like a cheap whore and you dress your 13 year old like a cheap whore, we won't look at you and think you fit right in, we'll think you were looking for the old meatpacking district days when 12 year old transvestite boys and fat old women got dolled up in their sluttiest stripper wear and offered to suck cock for a bag of rock.

Man, now I'm getting all nostalgic for the good old days.