Holiday greetings, my friends. It’s time for my annual public service column, in which I explain to you how to keep your annoying relatives off your back during the precious holiday time you’re privileged to spend together.
If you’re like me, you dearly love your family, but they irritate the crap out of you when you’re forced to spend all your time with them.
This is why it’s good that marijuana is legal now and for sale freaking everywhere, but for those of you who — like me — don’t imbibe, I have advice that I have tested myself. In fact, I give you a moneyback guarantee.
Those of you who will be visiting your parents, this works well, especially when there are other siblings around to participate. (But do not reveal anything to them about how this works. They cannot be trusted.)
This works equally well with bossy, overbearing adult children, but with a few tweaks.
Before we start, let me say that alcohol will generally help this process, depending on whether anyone in your clan is a mean drunk. I recommend Planter’s Punch, which is a shockingly potent cocktail made with 151-proof rum. It’s the first beverage on which I got drunk, and this was facilitated by the fact that it mostly just tastes like yummy fruit punch, and you don’t realize until later that it’s absolutely lethal.
If you have a mean drunk in your family, though, (even if it’s you), or anyone’s likely to get into a fistfight, then skip the liquor because it’s really not required.
You personally need to stay relatively sober, because you will be called on to remember some of the fictions you’ll be creating. Don’t think of it as lying to your family. Because really it’s a chance to make everyone happy. You get them to stop harping on you. They get to gossip about imaginary people and try to fix their messed-up lives.
I discovered this technique while talking long distance on the phone to my late mother, who was a world class worrywart. No matter what I told her, she was always obsessed with the idea I was about to screw up my life.
This is an actual conversation we had:
- “Hi, Mom. Guess what? I just won a national award! And I got a raise and a promotion!”
- “Really, honey? That’s nice. So many people are getting laid off these days. Do you think you might lose your job?”
Whenever she did this, I would just ignore the question and immediately tell her something about my brother.
“I heard that my brother and his wife had a big fight. I wonder if their marriage is OK.”
The male child was very much my mom’s favorite, so any time I could divert her attention from my shortcomings to his, she could run for hours without recharging. But what do you do if you don’t have a sibling?
Well, I realized at some point that I didn’t actually need a real person, I could just make someone up. The family would immediately stop asking me about how my diet was going, and instead try to figure out the motivations of my imaginary friend’s cheating husband.
Should she leave him? She does still love him. And he said he would break it off. And they do have small children. She would rather not raise them as a single mom. On the other hand, she doesn’t ever want to be accosted again by a bimbo claiming that her husband is planning to get a divorce and marry her instead.
Just to liven things up, you can throw in any other details you think would work, including a deadbeat brother-in-law, an untreated addiction or any unpaid IRS tax lien.
Maybe she just found out that the husband took out a second mortgage on their house without telling her. Probably not a good idea.
Every time someone tries to change the subject to question you about your love life or that stupid old car you insisted on buying against their advice, you can just invent more drama. Maybe pretend to get a phone call from the friend, adding more details.
Now, if the nosy family members are your adult children, you can add additional details. If you don’t want them obsessing about your health, every time they ask, tell them you’re thinking about taking a cruise to Antarctica. Someone has invited you to come along. Do enough research so you can make this sound real. Trust me, if your kids are the anxious types, they are not going to be happy about this. You can divert them for hours.
If your kids are pestering you to move in with them, turn on your phone to your favorite music channel, and start playing really loud hip-hop. Pick a song that’s obscene and awful and dance along with it. Maybe “Dead Body Disposal” by Necro. Tell the kids that this is your latest obsession, you made a new playlist and you blast it all the time.
You can also show them a photo of a drum set online, and tell them you decided to start playing so you’re going to buy one, right after you get the Harley you’ve always wanted.
With any luck, this is going to take them aback and stop the pestering about real stuff, at least for awhile.
I hope these tips can help you out this season. Write to me at mfisher@scng.com and let me know how it goes. I’ll try to answer, but I might be too busy listening to rap music.