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How to Avoid Family Gatherings

These are stolen. But I always love new ways to support my habit of crazy:


1. Claim you have a tummy ache.
2. Fake a bout of amnesia. Scream, “You’re not my family! I don’t know you!” and run into your room.
3. Lock yourself in the bathroom and say the door is broken.
4. Start telling inappropriate jokes to your Great Aunt Eugenia until you get yourself grounded.
5. Take up yoga. Leave to meditate.
6. Say you need to study for a test on the mental impact of a five hour marathon of “Teen Mom.”
7. Develop a clothing allergy.
8. Take a vow of silence.
9. Wear a decaying wedding dress and say you have to spend holidays with your spouse’s family. If someone mentions that you don’t have a spouse, pet a piece of your hair and giggle with wide eyes.
10. Act like a dog and knock the entire meal off the table. Everyone has to go home early!
11. Pretend to be asleep. This takes commitment. Someone will inevitably slap your cheek or throw water in your face. You must not react.
12. Rip all of your clothes in half and whine that you have nothing to wear.
13. Smear ketchup on your hands and chant in a monotone, “The way their eyes go blank. Curiously blank. Eternally blank.” You’ll have no problem getting permission to go to your room.
14. Say you have an urgent business call with Japan.
15. Clutch your stomach and claim you have “lady troubles.” This is even more effective if you’re male.
16. Convert to a religion that doesn’t believe in celebrations, family, or joy.
17. Hire a lawyer to prove that you are adopted.
18. Cite anthropophobia, a fear of groups of people.
19. Say, “What’s a holiday to a king? What’s a king to a god? What’s a god to a non-believer?” If someone calls you out on ripping off Kanye West and Jay-Z, run.
20. Only speak in rhyme. You’ll annoy everyone so much, you’ll be excused.
21. Start training for a marathon at the very minute that your family arrives.
22. Join the circus as a holiday employee.
23. Jump forward in time to after the gathering is over.

Comments

  1. what IS a holiday to the Countess???? Also, I waited and waited for the TARDIS to take me forward in time and missed dinner anyway, so it all worked out in the end.

    Thanks for some mid morning laughter, I needed it.

    (still outside waiting for the Doctor to show up in the TARDIS.. sheesh, that guy is never around....)

    ReplyDelete
  2. My standby: Have an autistic teen who is prone to verbal outbursts and stimming behavior.

    If it doesn't prevent us from going to a gathering, it does limit the time we stay.

    It works...sigh.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Ha ha ha! I thought I was doing good on the family gathering avoidance... and then someone threw down an Ugly Christmas Sweater challenge, so now I HAVE to go.

    But at least I'll be the ugliest.

    Oh wait.

    ReplyDelete

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