The Trouble

The trouble began last Saturday when my family came to visit.

My parents came to visit after delaying their visit for eight months. My mom broke out in shingles and didn’t want to infect my pregnant wife: Delay #1. My dad had problems with his eye and they needed to see a doctor: Delay #2. My dad needed an operation and needed to recover: Delay #3.

Months flitted past and before long, Emma was born. My parents finally decided on a date to visit, a long weekend of August 2-5. They hadn’t visited for three years—hadn’t even seen our house that we bought in 2011. (My parents aren’t very invested in my life.)

A few days before they were to start driving here, my mom told me, “Tai and his family are coming too.”

“What’s that now?” I asked. My oldest brother Tai hadn’t called, texted, or otherwise communicated with me about this.

“He’s planning on coming for the weekend too,” my mom said.

“That’s good to know,” I said. “Weird he didn’t tell me.”

I texted Tai and awkwardly asked him, “Hey, Mom tells me you are thinking of coming out here. True? Vicious rumor?”

He responded, “We will probably drive out the 4th and leave the 5th. Kind of a drive by uncle and aunt.”

I found this exchange peculiar, in that I hadn’t actually invited them. Well, maybe something was mentioned politely in passing when Meg and I visited in April about they being welcome to visit when Emma was born—but I didn’t remember talking specifics. This leads me to Rule #1 when it comes to visiting relatives out of state:

RULE #1: Before visiting relatives, ask if it’s okay to visit and if the time is convenient for them.

Obviously, Tai missed hearing about this one, and decided to tell my mom instead of me. Well, okay, whatever.

 

I called my parents the night before they were to start driving, to wish them bon voyage. My mom informed me that Tai and his family were to visit the whole weekend instead of two days now.

“Uh—okay—he didn’t tell me that,” I said. A second red flag sprung up next to the first in my head.

 

My parents arrived on Friday six hours earlier than expected. Luckily I had just arrived home from a half-day at work to greet them at the door. After Meg and Emma arrived home from a separate outing, we all went out for lunch and my parents met their fifth grandchild.

Maybe it’s just Meg’s parents who have spoiled me—they coo and fight to take turns holding Emma whenever they see her—but my parents seemed lukewarm towards her. My mom reluctantly held Emma first, propping the baby in her arms with mediocre head support against a boney elbow. My mom continued talking about events without paying much attention to the new child in her arms. My dad didn’t try to hold Emma at all at first, until I later plopped the baby in his arms.

Whatever. My parents aren’t baby people. I suppose that’s all right. Not everybody is. Anyway, that’s not what I want to write about. Let’s talk about Saturday.

 

It began, as most Saturdays do, with coffee for me and Meg and a bottle of milk for Emma. My parents sipped tea and we all ate buttered toast. According to a text message wrangled out of my non-communicative brother the night before, Tai and his family were due to arrive at 10 AM.

They arrived in Tai’s 1997 Toyota Corolla. I’m not entirely sure how you can fit two children’s car seats into a vehicle that small, but somehow they managed it. Tai, his wife Mindy, Misty (2 year old), and Mandy (1 year old) exited the vehicle and Tai waved at me.

“Hello! Come on in!” I said, propping open the security door with an arm and beckoning them in.

“Let’s go inside,” Mindy told her children. “It’s so hot out here.”

I glanced upward and shrugged. It wasn’t actually very hot in Tucson terms. Probably mid-90’s, with partly cloudy skies. I decided to let Mindy’s criticism of our fine weather pass and repeated to the slow moving children, “Come on in, come on in.”

“Get my computer,” Mindy ordered Tai, and entered the house, where my parents stood.

Tai retrieved a laptop bag from the trunk and finally everyone was assembled inside the library in the cool AC. Hugs were exchanged with most people, although the children didn’t want to hug anyone.

Everyone migrated towards the living room where we have a big arrangement of black leather sectionals formed into a couch. Mindy planted herself in the middle and looked sullen. Tai sat at the end and the two children immediately started jumping on the furniture, running around the living room, and screaming.

Tai wanted to hold Emma—he gave her genuine interest for about ten minutes—and then returned her to Meg. Mindy didn’t even glance at the baby. The two children ran up to Emma and touched her foot a few times, and then ran away screaming.

My parents sat at the other end of the couch, where they talked with Tai and Mindy. Meg and I sat on the sidelines without contributing much. This is usually the way it goes when my relatives are put into a room—I end up sitting quietly for hours while they seem perfectly content talking about inanely boring topics.

An hour later, Mindy broke out a bag of snacks for Misty and Mandy. (Oh, and by the way—what the hell. Why do people insist on naming children nearly alliteratively? Did they forget about the other 25 letters of the alphabet?) The children alternated between eating gummy snacks and running on my furniture and dropping the gummy snacks on my furniture and running on the gummy snacks on my furniture. I tried to not let it bother me.

Misty—two and a half years old—wore a T-shirt and a skirt. I eyed her diaper as it swung perilously over the couch. I envisioned poop streaking the seat from which I usually watch TV. A two and a half year old wearing a diaper is a bit old. I boggled at Misty, a child who could walk and talk with ease, apparently unable to know that shitting in one’s pants isn’t desirable.

Tai brought this up at one point. “I tried potty training her one day,” he stated. “I’d take her every thirty minutes to the bathroom. Boy, that’s a lot of work. And Misty is scared of flushing. Aren’t you scared of flushing?”

Misty nodded.

“Flushing’s the best part,” I offered helpfully.

“So after that, I just gave up,” Tai continued, ignoring me.

“Oh.”

 

I took Tai on a tour of the house. “A house like this would cost a million dollars in California,” he said in awe.

“Look, a back yard,” Mindy said pointedly to Tai. “That’d be nice to have.”

We stepped out to the backyard patio and Mandy ran towards the stone wall and placed her palms on it. She started crying.

“Careful, you’ll get burnt,” Mindy said. “It’s so hot out here.”

Misty ran for the rocks around our fountain and Mindy called after her, “Watch out for scorpions and spiders!”

 

We went to lunch at Sweet Tomatoes, because what other kind of restaurant are you supposed to suggest to a finicky Thai eater at a moment’s notice? The children were given bowls of peas and corn to eat. Mandy ate one … pea … at a time. For two hours. Eventually I asked if we could go so we could stop by Target to buy some more diapers for Emma. We left them still in the restaurant, working on the bowl of peas.

 

They arrived back at our house and I wasn’t sure what we should do. We ended up in the living room again, with the children jumping and running on the furniture again, with Mindy looking sullen again. She retrieved an iPad and asked for my WiFi password, and started surfing the internet while the others talked. This leads me to Rules #2 and #3.

RULE #2: When visiting relatives with your children, bring something for them to do.

RULE #3: When visiting relatives uninvited, don’t ignore me and pretend the whole experience is a bother. You’re the bother.

Hours passed as slowly as the pitch drop experiment, with the children tirelessly running around. Meg had provided Misty with some plastic toys. At one point, Misty was trying to find the switch on toys that weren’t electronic. In a moment of irony, Tai menti

oned that they didn’t let their kids have electronic toys. Mindy added, “They don’t really play with toys. They like to be active. Running and jumping.”

In an attempt to tire out the children, my mom suggested a walk around the neighborhood. This was discussed at length (Mindy: it’s too hot outside), until everyone but Mindy agreed. We assembled in the driveway, where Tai took out two umbrella strollers from the car trunk. (Wasn’t this walk to tire out the kids? Apparently not.)

We took a quick walk around the neighborhood, with the children riding the whole time. Meg pointed out a tarantula wasp, which lays its eggs inside of tarantulas and the hatched spiders eat their way out of the poor spider. In a strange coincidence, I spotted one of the biggest tarantulas I’ve ever seen near the sidewalk. It scampered under a gate before everyone had a chance to see it. I shuddered in revulsion—I hate spiders—and edged my way around the fence.

Everyone returned to my house and settled back down in the living room. Meg reminded my parents that they wanted pictures, so I urged everyone to go into the backyard. Despite Mindy mentioning scorpions again, we all lined up outside and took some pictures.

The sun set and I wondered if the day would ever end. As they all arranged themselves back on the couches, I resigned myself to more waiting.

I went to check on Emma and walked in on Mindy having an argument with Tai: “I need to have time to do my exercises in the pool, and you need to take care of the children.”

“Well, we were going to stay here until 10,” Tai replied.

“I need to exercise. How late is the pool open?”

“Midnight.”

“Do you think you can take care of the children if we stay that late?”

“Yeah.”

 

It was dinnertime. Meg and I huddled in Emma’s room and whispered about our options. “Should we give them dinner?”

“Let’s order pizza,” Meg said.

“Mindy wouldn’t like it.”

“I don’t give a damn what she likes.”

“Pizza it is,” I smiled.

We walked into the living room. Tai was closing the fridge door and looked like I’d caught his hand in the cookie jar. He waved a slice of American cheese in its plastic wrapping. “I hope you don’t mind, but I got some cheese for Mandy.”

I ignored him. “We’re ordering pizza for everyone.”

Everyone but Mindy agreed that this was a good idea. I returned to Meg in Emma’s room, and we started the order on her iPad.

When we returned to the kitchen, Mindy had her laptop on the kitchen table, wearing earbuds, watching a movie.

I stood on the other side of the table. I eyed her. I eyed Tai, who tiredly tried to stop Misty and Mandy from being evil. They were still jumping and running on furniture, snacking on something gummy. I eyed Mindy again.

“Aren’t they tired since they didn’t get a nap?” I asked Tai, in an oblique hint that they should think about going home soon.

“Oh, they normally don’t nap,” he said.

Since our doorbell doesn’t work, I headed for the library and sat at my computer so I could listen for the pizza guy. Also, I didn’t want to face them anymore. Their visit had reached the 10 hour mark, and I was getting frustrated.

Tai followed me to the library and stood less than a foot away, well inside my personal space. I don’t like people looking over my shoulder at my computer at the best of times, but this was a bit much. Both my parents joined him, for some reason, and my mom asked, “What are you doing?”

Stupidly, I stared at my desktop, and looked around to them, and didn’t know what to say. What I wanted to say was, “Getting away from you and reading an atheist blog,” but I think I said I was waiting for the pizza guy.

The pizza guy arrived and I literally had to push my way around my dad so I could get out of my chair. Seriously. Get out of my space.

Everyone inhaled the pizza, except for Mindy, who still sat at the kitchen table, watching a movie on her l

aptop. I kept looking at her, wondering if she realized how rude this was.

Mandy, the one year old, finally reached her limit and started screaming and crying. Tai unsuccessfully tried to console her.

“Well, I guess it’s her bedtime,” I strongly hinted.

He held the screaming child another fifteen minutes.

I huddled with Meg again. “I don’t know what to do. They just won’t go home.”

Tai walked around the corner and I wondered if he heard me. Then I didn’t care.

We walked out into the living room again and Mindy looked up. “Oh, is it time to go?” she asked innocently, over the sound of her child screaming.

“No, not yet—” Tai began.

“YES, yes it is,” I overrode him, nodding my head vigorously. “It’s getting really late, and I was up all night with the baby. I’m so tired.” (This was actually all true.)

“Oh,” Mindy said, closing her laptop lid.

 

At this point, my mom got tearful. “I hate goodbyes,” she said.

“But they need to go. The children need to go to bed,” I added, justifying my declaration.

 

And away they went, twelve hours after they’d arrived. The red lights of the car turned the corner and I sighed in relief, wished my parents a good night, and asked Meg if she wanted to take a shower. We spent the next hour ranting about how horrible the day was.