Hardware Cloth

One word of advice about hardware cloth cleverly fashioned into a charcoal briquette screen: don’t lose yours. If you’re trying to grill dinner for a large group of people and you’ve left it pretty late to get the fire started, be sure you at least know where your charcoal sifter is. Without it, you’re fucked. Yes, dear brother-in-law, you can help me with the grilling. If you could kindly squat down and crap out a square of hardware cloth, we’d be in business. Dad actually said that, made that suggestion so calmly, so matter-of-factly, to his brother-in-law that you got the distinct feeling that he would truly welcome it. If BIL had farted one out and said “here ya go” he would have delightedly gone on his way. The dirty looks my Aunt gave me as I laughed hysterically have stuck with me, though this was several years ago. I’ve wondered if she assumed we were laughing at her husband, or laughing to encourage Dad. I was laughing because Dad said it so earnestly. There was no sarcasm there, none at all. Yes, BIL, that would be the best help of all.

Denial (Not Just a River in Egypt)

Nope, I have no idea why you would be so angry with me. You want to tell me something I don’t like? Great, I’ve always wanted to go on a guilt trip. I hear the buffet is exceptional.

Waffles

If you don’t like cooking for large groups, please don’t do it. If you insist on doing it, please don’t make something that is extremely slow, like waffles. It’s a bad idea, one that makes you homicidal in under five minutes. Who wants to spend the post-breakfast period mopping up the blood, sweat, and tears? Not even my sister enjoys that, and she likes work.

No!

It is apparently not necessary to make a full request. All you have to do is to make the first humming sounds in a supplicating tone that precede a request, and you can initiate a full refusal without ever forming actual words. I think there must be some high-frequency pitch that passes between my parents that only they can hear. I wish I could tune out all the rest of the crap they say to each other that I can hear.