If you have been reading some of my recent posts, you are probably aware that I have been talking about attending the Logistics Executive Development Course at Fort Lee, Virginia. I am in the middle of a series of posts about that experience. And no, it is not over. I still have a few tales, no not that kind of tail, left to tell about that experience. However, if you remember, I mentioned (for a few weeks now) that I have a theory of relatives. Well, I would like to share that with you. You may or may not find it amusing. And you may not even find it interesting. However, if you read it in its entirety and think about it, I am sure that you will find that it is true. Oh, it is so very true. I could set this theory of relatives up like any other scientific postulation but then it would be downright boring and stuffy to read. And I don’t think that any of you would really want to read boring and stuffy scientific jargon. Am I right? Of course I’m right. So, what are relatives? Yes. They are people. Very good. Some of you are right on top of things. However, they are more than just people. Relatives are people that you know and associate with simply because somebody told you that they are related to you in one form or another. For example: relatives might be cousins, relatives could be aunts and uncles, or relatives may even be grandfathers and grandmothers. If you come from a large or extended family, the number of cousins and aunts and uncles that you might have related to you could be exponentially higher than if you come from a small family. I of course came from a large family in the rural Midwest. My family was Catholic. Catholic families, when I was a kid, were usually and generally always large. Therefore, their extended families are also very large. And the further you extrapolate the relationships, the larger your related family becomes. I haven’t said anything very ominous or bad about that extended family yet. I have only merely pointed out that you could be related to one helluva lot of people. This is where the theory of relatives gets interesting. If you are a filthy rich individual who has millions and millions of dollars stacked away somewhere or perhaps billions and billions of dollars stacked away somewhere, you can disregard everything else that I am about to say because it doesn’t apply to you. Why doesn’t it apply to you? That’s an excellent question. Well, here’s the thing about relatives. Relatives tend to show up at your door right as you are about to eat dinner. But they never show up on the days that you are eating a cheap, quickly prepared dinner. Oh hell no. You know. Those are the days that you have chili Mac or chili rice or hotdogs or some simple, cheap dinner like that. Oh no. They never show up on those days. They always show up on the days that you are having steak. They have an uncanny sixth sense about these things. It’s as if they seem to know in advance what is cooking at your house. And the number of relatives that show up is directly proportional to the cost of the steak (or other haute cuisine) that you have prepared. For example: a sedan load of people (four or five) will show up on the days that you are cooking top sirloin. But on the days that you have prepared New York strip steak, an SUV load (usually six or seven people) will show up. But God forbid that you should cook filet mignon. Cuz let me tell you, on those days, at least two carloads of people claiming to be your relatives will show up right around dinnertime expecting to be fed. And they expect a full three course meal with all of the trimmings. They think that they have arrived at a restaurant when they pull up in front of your house. And as soon as they have eaten, they are out the door and gone lickety-split. They do not lift one finger to help you clean up. Oh hell no. Cuz you don’t help clean up in a restaurant. Do you? Of course not. And that’s what relatives’ houses are for. Now here’s another thing about relatives. You probably don’t even know half (I’m being conservative here) of the people that show up at your door claiming to be your relatives. And they never call ahead of time to let you know that they’re in town or in the neighborhood and that they are thinking about stopping by. No. That would be too easy and too polite. They can’t do that. My stepdad had an answer for relatives. His solution, no matter who the relatives were, was to cook some sort of noodle dish that would feed everybody. As soon as he noticed a car load of relatives pulling up to the house. He would quickly start our family ritual of preparing the noodle dish to feed the relative horde. Now I don’t know about any of you, but I simply cannot afford to feed all of the relatives that show up unannounced at my door and dinnertime expecting to eat the finest steak that money can buy. I just don’t have the money to do that. I have a hard enough time feeding my immediate relatives. And these relatives that show up at your door unannounced, are never home when you show up at their door (assuming that you even know where they live and can find the house). That in a nutshell, is my theory of relatives, and if you can avoid those “relatives” you will steer clear of all exercises in futility.
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