Names have been changed to protect the innocent and deranged alike.
currently sat in my living room with two drunk men and a damp spaniel who are refusing to leave or answer their phones and it’s all my fault…
The background is that DP and I have been together some years now and he comes from a pretty well to do British home with two eccentric parents and one thoroughly batshit sister. We’ll call the sister ‘Tilly’ and she is the catalyst of all chaos and is the main character in all family dramas.
DP and I both work in the arts and are very well versed in the ways of the drama queen and the ego fiend and are very good at handling hard work people so we muddle along with Tilly and do our best to include her. FIL is ex military and bloody hilarious at times, a bit old fashioned but overall pleasant.
MIL is an extremely overprotective and epitomises the bored middle class housewife and frankly it’s a shame they stopped giving out Valium on the NHS a couple decades ago because she’d benefit somewhat.
Tilly has never had a job or been to university or even attended a drs appointment on her own, partly due to a weird codependent relationship with MIL, partly due the fact that she has the IQ of a Jaffa Cake. She is very skilled at spending FIL’s money and manipulating people so that she enjoys the lifestyle of low ranking royal , she gets chauffeured about and likes shopping and occasionally will offer up a bit of volunteer work so she can post about it on social media with her latest fashion purchases carefully shoehorned into the frame.
MIL had an event today at the house, I won’t name the organisation but it’s very ‘jam and Jerusalem’ and she is highly respected in this organisation so wanted Tilly, FIL and the dog out of the house so she could go full ‘hostess with the mostest’ and be sure there’d be no tantrums or humping or farting or whatever Tilly and FIL and the dog might have done to cramp her style…
so the day was engineered that FIL and DP would take the dog to the groomers, leave him there, wander around the shops and get some new shirts for FIL and I would take Tilly with me to a work thing (that I really didn’t want to) but I’m happy to do my bit. Tilly has behaved like an absolute cockwomble all day, she has complained about everything, offended my colleagues and friends and embarrassed me profusely because for once she was not the centre of the universe and none of these people were responding to her Disney Princess energy. I have spoken to her several times about her tone and what she’s saying and literally begged her to behave. In the end I’d had enough and left her outside a pub.
I walked home and poured myself a large glass of wine and waited for the shit to hit the fan.
I text DP and told him and he said he was on his way home. I was pleased. A few minutes later , two very drunk and very wet gentlemen and a bemused spaniel appear in my kitchen. I’m just drying the dog when FIL’s phone rings, it’s MIL he puts her on speakerphone…
she is nothing short of apoplectic, SIL apparently had to ride the train the full 5 stops home alone ( the horror!) has soaking wet hair ( thoughts and prayers) and burst into MILs meeting sobbing and hyperventilating and then for the crescendo, threw herself onto the floor and pretended to be sick. MIL has had to put her to bed and I quote ‘forgot to serve the canapés’ because of the drama.
pissed FIL and DP ( yes they went to the pub rather than shopping) have simply howled with laughter into the phone and hung up. my name is now of course mud with MIL and SIL and I have the rest of the family holding up at mine because FIL ignored missed calls from TIlly which is why she had to travel home in the rain and is now on her deathbed.