Thursday, May 2, 2013

In which Sly and Doris complain about how I addressed a thank-you note I sent to them

Yes. You read that properly. Sly and Doris complained to Primo about the address on the thank-you note I sent to them.

I know. Every time you think it couldn't get any weirder than my being a Bad Bacon Eater, something else comes along. Sly and Doris: The Gift That Keeps Giving.

So Primo spoke to Sly and Doris yesterday. My Sins du Jour:

1. I didn't address the note properly. I just wrote "Digger" as my return name and "Drunks" instead of "Mr and Mrs S Drunks" on the "to" address name. They were offended that I didn't write out the "Mr and Mrs," which I don't do for anyone because I am lazy.

They were even more offended that I used my maiden name instead of Primo's surname on the return address. "Didn't she take your name?" they demanded, which strikes me as an odd question from confirmed liberals. Wouldn't they be the ones more likely to say, "Yay women's rights and keeping the maiden name! Down with the patriarchy!"

But no.

That is something I have noticed with my friends. Yes, I did change my surname when I married Primo - a big mistake, as I really do not want to be associated with Sly and Doris in any way, plus I miss my last name, but I don't use it anywhere except work. My email is still "Digger," as is facebook and on LinkedIn. I have never represented myself as Gold Drunk ever to anyone except the IRS and my employer and I am only that way at my employer because they said I had to use my legal name.

Yet it is my friends who themselves are the most adamant about using their maiden names who call me "Gold Drunk" instead of "Gold Digger." Seriously - these are women who pitch a fit if you address a letter to "Mr and Mrs Husband'sLastName." Yet they all wrote their Christmas cards to "Mr and Mrs Primo Drunk."
What's that all about?

2. Sly and Doris found the Christmas letter I wrote in 2005, the year I met Primo. I had sent it to Primo and he sent it on to his parents. Big mistake. Primo thought it was really funny and he thought they would like it as well.

They did not. That letter, they told him yesterday, confirms that they have been right all along not to like me.

The problem?

I mocked communism in the letter. I called it the Pravda. I wrote stories like this:

Five Pairs of Shoes to Paris
Capitalist Swine the Gold Digger took five pairs of shoes on her vacation to Paris. Shoes made with the blood of the laborers but do they own the means of the production? No they do not but one day after the Glorious Revolution they will and all will live in Peace and Harmony.

The Capitalist took not one but five, yes, count them, five pairs of shoes on her vacation when how can you wear more than one pair at a time? You have only two feet, is that not true, Comrade? Yes, two feet. And how many shoes can you get on those two feet at once? Two shoes. One pair. So why would anyone take ten shoes on a bourgeois vacation while the laborers, they get no vacation at all?

So it is fitting that the Capitalist Swine (we spit on her) suffered much pain from the ill-fitting new shoes and the very-high-heeled red crocodile pumps on her Paris getaway with her Moroccan fling while she bathed in the blood of the People.

Sly and Doris did not appreciate it. Shocking.

3. I am self absorbed.

Not in the sense that I dominate every conversation with talk about myself. Not that I show no interest in other people. Not that I expect everyone to do things my way.

No, that would be sly.

Not that I blog about myself. (Who else am I supposed to write about?)

Nope. It's that I insist on going to bed when I want to, even when I am visiting Sly and Doris, which, for the record, no longer happens. I haven't been there in three years, I don't think. So they are ticked about visits that happened over three years ago. A third of a decade, people!

Apparently, when I am visiting there, in addition to cleaning their fridge, cleaning the mildew off all the exterior doors, pulling weeds, and doing the cooking and the dishes, I am supposed to socialize until late in the evening. Even though if I did stay up late with them and Primo, they would complain that I was not giving them any time alone with Primo. God, could they just get five minutes alone with their son? Would it kill me to go to the bedroom and give them some alone time, just the three of them?

"So how come when they visited us, they didn't adjust to our habits?" I asked Primo. "We had to put them in our bedroom. They got up at the crack of dawn and started making noise, even though they knew they were disturbing us in the basement. You had to move the stereo to the living room. We had to entertain them. We had to get the foods they like. They made no effort to adjust to our schedule."

Primo laughed. "No, no, no! That's not how it works! We are always supposed to be the ones to do what they want to do, no matter where they are!"