admin January 17th, 2007
My cousin
At risk of airing even more family dirty laundry (or dirty dishes) than The Big Seester did over on her blog the other day, I have to tell this story. It involves some backstory too, so please bear with me.
TBS and I have three cousins on our mother’s side. The eldest is my age – he’ll turn 30 in March – and, while quite the ‘free spirit’, is pretty darned sane as our family goes. He lives on the West Coast.
The other two are siblings, and are nuts. One is 26 and currently living in Salt Lake City. We’re OK with that. Utah can have him. The other one is about to turn 23 and living at home. Since her mom nearly died last March, she’s made remarkable efforts to start to grow up. She got a job, for example, and is about to buy a car. She’s also talking about moving out on her own (to the West Coast, as it happens).
This dear youngest cousin – let’s paraphrase Mike the Geek and call her Beloved-But-Obnoxious Cousin, at least until I come up with a better pseudonym – has been a veritable font of amusement for her elders over the years. First it was because she was little and cute. Then, as she got older and became less cute and more difficult, in addition to often being a massive pain in the neck, she also would sometimes be very funny. Sometimes intentionally, mind you, but oftentimes not intentionally, and THAT is when she was her funniest.
Take, for example, the classic “Why do we always have to talk about WORDS?!” At a family gathering several years ago, we somehow got onto a discussion about some nuance of language. (I don’t remember the exact details.) Beloved-But-Obnoxious Cousin quickly tired of the topic, and finally had a mild tantrum that centered around her blurting “Why do we always have to talk about WORDS?!” Poor kid – that question has lived in infamy ever since.
Then, just this last Christmas (2006), TBS and I went to our aunt’s house for Christmas Eve. Our mother was off enjoying a Posada in Texas or Mexico or something, and since, as I mentioned, we nearly lost our aunt earlier in the year, we couldn’t very well decline her invitation.
We spent a good portion of the evening sorting through family recipes. Periodically Beloved-But-Obnoxious Cousin would say something like, “Why would you want a recipe for BREAD? Why wouldn’t you just BUY it?!” or “Why would you want a recipe for chocolate cake when you can just buy a mix?” At one point, she (apparently thinking she was delivering the supreme insult) said that TBS and I “probably make mashed potatoes out of actual POTATOES, not from instant!” Well, actually yes – if I’m going to consume that many simple-carb calories, you’d better believe they’re going to be real potatoes, and with plenty of butter, milk, salt and pepper to boot!
Well, Beloved-But-Obnoxious Cousin has just outdone herself. I keep an instant messenger client on my computer at work, both for business and personal use, and as long as I don’t let it interfere with my job, my boss doesn’t really care. Beloved-But-Obnoxious Cousin has idly chatted with me while I’m at work in past (commenting, by the way, that she can’t believe I get paid to IM all day, when she’s the one initiating and continuing the conversation). Yesterday Beloved-But-Obnoxious Cousin hopped onto chat and asked if I wanted to see the car she’s thinking of buying. I know she’s excited about it, and I am pretty proud of her for sticking with this long enough to bring it to fruition, so I say “Sure – link me.” She shows me a ‘92 Tempo with under 100K miles and a ‘97 Sunfire with about 165K miles.
Mind you, her primary criterion so far for buying the car, apart from price, has been that it has to have a CD player, because “I don’t like radio.” Now she tells me that she’ll probably go with the Sunfire, because the Tempo is a coupe and “I hate two-door cars.”
I used to have a Topaz, the sister car to the Tempo. It was junk – my father used to grimly joke that Ford must’ve engineered the car so that everything couldn’t work at the same time. If you fixed the water pump, the brakes went. When you fixed the brakes, the power steering went. And so forth. Now, it was a new model in ‘85 when my stepmom bought it, so obviously Ford hadn’t had a chance to work out all the bugs yet. I understand that not all years of Tempos and Topazes will be as bad as mine was. However, The Canuck’s parents had a late-80s Tempo, and while he doesn’t remember it being as bad as my Topaz, he did allow as how it had more than its fair share of problems.
That said, I’ve only known one person who had a Sunfire, and she hated it. She thought it was the worst car ever, and her Sunfire would’ve been pretty close in vintage to the one Beloved-But-Obnoxious Cousin is looking at buying.
So I suggested to Beloved-But-Obnoxious Cousin that she might want to look at Consumer Reports and see what they think about those cars in those year. I even mention that I think TBS might have a subscription, so if she calls and asks nicely, TBS might be able to help her out. (Sorry, TBS, but don’t worry – I don’t think she’ll be calling you.) However, please note that I prefaced my suggestion with “This is completely your decision, but you may want to think about…”
First she says, “This is my first car; it’s not supposed to be good.” I gently pointed out to her that, while one’s first car is certainly not expected to be The Best Car Ever, one can certainly try to minimize the amount one needs to spend on avoidable repairs. Cars break, but some break more often and more severely than others, and every dollar you spend on an avoidable car repair is a dollar you can’t spend on food, rent at some place other than your mother’s house, cigarettes, or wacky tobaccy (which she claims she no longer uses, but I said it for rhetorical purposes).
Then she says, “Well, I’m budgeting myself.” I said that I was sure she was, but reiterated the point about opportunity cost.
Then came the new classic line, which must and shall be remembered through the ages:
“This is my purchase, and I don’t have time to research the market!”
So I reminded her that I’d never said it wasn’t her purchase, that I’d actually made a point of noting that it WAS her purchase and her decision, and signed off with: “Have fun, and don’t complain to me if you buy a lemon.”
Because, of course, she WILL complain to me. And that’s really where my objection comes in. Well, that and because last I knew she didn’t do ANYthing besides go to her job: you know, like clean house, or cook, or mow the lawn/shovel snow without pitching a giant fit, so I’m not sure how she doesn’t have time, but that’s just self-righteous annoyance. :-p
The Canuck has suggested that, since my opinions are obviously not welcome, I should simply stop giving them. I think he’s right, although that pretty much means not talking to her, which won’t please her mother very much.
Oh well. I’m just one of those opinionated freaks who actually MASHES POTATOES to have mashed potatoes. 
