***
A Christmas Manners Quiz
By DELIA EPHRON
Published: December 23, 2013
YOU arrive for Christmas dinner. Your mother has left
your father for a woman and you are meeting her for the first time.
Do you say, “Hello, it’s nice
to meet you”?
Do you tweet, “#MomIsGay.
She’s going to hell”?
Do you text your best friend,
“If I survive Xmas, it will be a miracle”?
Your cousin Stephen has become a born-again Christian
and wants to say grace.
Do you bow your head and wait
patiently until it’s over?
Do you stick your fingers in
your ears and tell your 5-year-old niece Lily to do the same?
Do you say, “If you love God
so much, why don’t you marry him?”
Do you text your best friend,
“Xmas the nightmare continues, now we’re praying”?
Your sister Maria has a new boyfriend who is three
months sober and wearing cargo shorts.
Do you drag your sister Jen
into the kitchen to discuss Maria and her boyfriend behind their backs?
Do you take his picture and
tweet it with #Men2Old2WearCargoShorts?
Neither.
Both.
Do you start a pool? Everyone
can pay $1 and guess how long Maria’s new relationship will last.
Do you start a pool? Everyone
can pay $1 and guess how long Maria’s new boyfriend will stay sober.
Your Uncle Eric loves Fox News. Your sister Jen
listens only to NPR. Which of these are appropriate dinner table conversations?
The Republicans are racists
masquerading as conservatives.
Obama is a Muslim socialist
masquerading as a Christian Democrat.
How lucky we all are to be
together.
How lucky we all are not to
live in Toronto.
If I took my dirty clothes
into the ice cream store instead of the cleaners, does that mean I have
Alzheimer’s?
Your nephew Jeremy lost his job, developed colitis and
doesn’t have health care. What do you say to him?
“Move to France.”
“You’ve always got some drama
going, don’t you?”
“I’ll sit with you at the
computer and, even if it takes all night, we’ll get on that website and sign
you up for Obamacare.”
“You’re screwed.”
Your niece Emily gets one temporary job after another,
but the minute the company has to hire her permanently and give her benefits
they fire her. What do you say to her?
“If you were any good, that
wouldn’t happen.”
“Life will get better, I
promise. You are brilliant and talented. There has to be one decent corporation
in America.”
“Unemployment in Spain is 26
percent. Unemployment in Greece
is 27 percent. Unemployment on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota is over 80
percent. Stop whining and help me peel stickers off fruit.”
Your niece Vivian is single and on dating websites.
She tells you about Lulu, a smartphone app that lets women rank their dates
with hashtags like #KinkyButInAGoodWay. What is the proper response?
“Thank God I’m not single. I
feel so, so sorry for you.”
“That is the sickest thing
I’ve ever heard.”
“The women who founded that
app became millionaires and they are two years younger than you.”
None of the above.
Your cousin Kara and her husband Brad, an investment banker,
ate last week at Per Se. The meal cost $685 per person, says Kara, and
afterward she Googled a review of the restaurant, which said it was worth every
penny, and that review was so right.
Do you force Kara to write a
$50,000 check to the New York City
food bank?
Do you force Brad to watch
“It’s a Wonderful Life”?
Do you feel sad and poor even
though a minute before you were happy and only sort of poor? Do you think about
the credit card debt that you’ll probably never pay off (from buying all these
Christmas presents) and how crowded it was in coach on the flight out, and how
you were crammed into the middle seat, and your foot fell asleep, and you got a
stiff neck and you’re getting the flu because the guy next to you had a hacking
cough? In fact, you realize, you absolutely hate your life, but not as much as
you hate Brad and Kara.
Do you drag your sisters
Maria and Jen into the kitchen to discuss what a spoiled brat your cousin is?
All of the above.
Your brother Marcus has come out of hiding for
Christmas dinner because he can’t resist your mother’s plum pudding. He is
wanted for 10 gangland slayings.
Do you call the police?
Do you let him eat some
pudding with hard sauce and then call the police?
Do you think, I would rather
lose my job, my reputation and all my friends, and let a murderer go free, and
not give any of the victims’ families closure than turn in my brother and wreck
Christmas?
It’s time to leave. As soon as you get in the car,
what do you do?
Call your best friend and
say, “As usual my mom didn’t ask me one single question about myself.”
Call your best friend and
say, “I felt like I was 15 again.”
Call your shrink and leave a
message: “As usual, all anyone cares about is my brother.”
Post a picture of your mom
and the woman she’s in love with on Facebook. “Mom and Lindy. Welcome to the
family.”
Call your dad and say, “We’ll
be there in a half-hour.” Swear that you hardly ate and you can’t wait to see
him and meet Samantha.
Text your best friend, “One
down, one to go.”
***
No comments:
Post a Comment