I won't be going home to visit this year at Christmas. I have to work the night of, so I will visit the loved ones after in January. Although, I dearly love my rather small family, it is amazing how often the same conversations are repeated. It also helps to puncture the notion that everybody in Canada is a liberal warm fuzzy types full of benign cheer. My mother always has a bottle of wine or two when we gather. Wise woman.
It goes like this.....
Cousin X: I am tired of my taxes going to XYZ... I work hard... I work harder than those ( foreigners, welfare bums, drug addicts, everybody else who is not him) and I had to work blah, blah, hours of overtime. And it isn't even worth working the overtime because I never see it. How is anybody supposed to get ahead?
Me: Why don't you think about going back to school part time or on line if you feel that strongly.
Cousin X: Why should I have to?
Me: Then don't. But you can retire on a full time pension at 55, and you have good medical care, a lot of Americans have no access to medical care.
Cousin X: You think you're smarter than me because you went to university. I could have gone to, you know.
Cousin X's Wife, A: He is just tired because he works so hard.
Aunt X: Every time we come to Toronto to visit it looks like the third world.
Me: You haven't been to the third world, so how would you know.
Aunt X: You know what I mean...
Me: I do not.
Aunt X: Nobody was born here.
Me: But cousin X is married to A, and she is from Columbia.
Aunt X: Well, she is so lovely and we know her, its different.
Me: So you just don't like all the "stranger" foreigners, who are probably Canadian anyway.
Aunt X: Oh, I don't dislike them, but all this multi-culturalism confuses me, why can't they just be Canadian.
Me: What is Canadian? Do you mean white?
Aunt X: Not exactly. Why do you have to make a big deal out of everything, I am just trying to have a conversation, have you gained weight?
Me: I am not sure should we look for a scale?
Uncle X: Do you make more than X?
Me: What difference does it make?
Uncle X: Your mother made more money than I did.
Mother Calico: Well, X, I stayed at the same job for 30 years and you quit several jobs with a good pensions.
Uncle X: I had to quit they wouldn't let me do my job. People these days don't know how to work hard, except X, do you work as hard as X? How much did you say you made?
Grandma Calico: Does anybody want seconds, I think the hockey game is coming on soon.
Mother Calico: Does anybody want some wine?
Me: Hand it over.