What a Life!

This post is an update to Bleh which I posted the other day. I seem to be able to let go of things much more easily once I post them on my blog, so rather than letting this fester all week, I shall voice my opinion here. No obligation to read or anything. Comments are always welcome, especially the kind and understanding ones I received on my previous post.

We celebrated Steve’s birthday yesterday. But before I talk about when everyone arrived and all that, let me back up a little and fill in some more details.

Scene 1 – Joey’s Baptism

The party that practices the habitual lateness is Steve’s brother and sister-in-law, S&S. After Joey was born, we asked them if they would be the godparents when we had Joey baptized as they did for Ben. We scheduled Joey’s baptism for the first Sunday in December and set the time for immediately following the 10:00 mass so it made sense that everyone would just come for mass so they would be there and ready.

Before the day of the baptism, the priest asked me directly if the godparents were Catholic. The duty of the godparents is to ensure that the child is raised in the faith if something happens to the parents, so it goes without saying that at a baptism in a Catholic church, you would want the godparents to be practicing Catholics. I told him they were Catholic but they had just moved so I did not know if they had registered at their new parish yet.

Well, S&S decided, for whatever reason, that they would not be coming to mass. If you’re the godparents and you’re supposed to be practicing Catholics, it would make sense for you to act like Catholics and come to mass as you should be every week. But we could assume they had gone to mass the night before or something and thus they were not there for mass. Whatever.

Mass ended at 10:40, the priest stood at the back door and greeted everyone as they exited, and then he returned to the front of the church at 10:45, ready to conduct the batism ceremony.

Except that the godparents had not yet arrived. [Of course.]

You have to understand that in the Catholic church, you are not supposed to speak once you enter the church. When you arrive before mass, you are supposed to sit there quietly and meditate while you wait for the service to begin. Of course, the priest is sitting there with us, so none of us could even talk with each other. We just sat there silently and waited.

…and waited…and waited. We sat there silently and waited for twenty five minutes. And we had two children to keep quiet as well during that entire time.

At 11:10, S&S waltzed in, the same way as you would walk in if you were five minutes early. No explanation. No apology. No remorse.

I was so angry I could hardly speak. Not only was I irritated for having to wait, I felt like their not being at mass put my credibility on the line since I had told the priest that they were Catholic.

I was so angry I could hardly say the responses during the ceremony – and they were quite simple things like “we do” and stuff like that. Afterwards, there are the traditional pictures with the parents, godparents and the priest. In some pictures the priest holds the baby. Then the godparents hold the baby and pose with the priest. And so forth. We did the first set of pictures with the parents, the godparents, and the priest, and then I was done. I was too mad to care about the other pictures so I did not hand over the baby so anyone else could take them.

Scene 2 – Christmas

In my anger, I decided that when we got together for Christmas, if it was up to me, we would sit at home and do whatever we felt like doing until S called to see where we were, and then we would look for our jackets, load up the car and drive up to their place.

As it was, I didn’t have the courage to be that bold, but afterwards I wished I had.

It’s Steve’s mom who is always early. If you say to come at 12:30, you can expect her to show up any time after 12:00. The set time for this particular gathering was 12:30, and Steve’s mom showed up unannounced at 11:00 to cook her ham (her contribution to the dinner) and S&S’s house rather than cooking it at home and then transporting it as she usually does. I must say, I cannot blame them for being upset with her.

I did manage to drag my feet enough that we were about ten minutes late. Sure enough, when 12:30 came and went, my cell phone rang. It was S&S, wondering where we were. Apparently they don’t enjoy indefinite waiting for people either. I must say, I so feel their pain.

When we arrived, everyone came swarming out as though they had been doing nothing but sitting there, waiting for us to arrive. In retrospect, I so wish I would have drug my feet even more so they would have had to wait even longer. Oh well.

Scene 3 – Steve’s Mom’s Birthday

In January, we always get together to celebrate Steve’s mom’s birthday. I’ve known Steve for six years, and I can tell you that every year, it goes like this: I remind Steve that his mom’s birthday is coming soon and that he should call her and ask her how she’d like to celebrate. He calls her and sets something up like going to Applebees the Sunday nearest her birthday and meeting at noon.

Then I email S&S and tell them of the plans Steve made. S emails me back and says, Oh, well, S talked with Mom two weeks ago and she said she wanted to go to [insert name of outlandish restaurant we can never imagine Steve’s mom wanting to go to here]. Every year.

If they already made plans and they’re expecting us to join them, as is the usual custom, why didn’t they fill us in on those plans before we called her and made plans? It would make sense to us, but that is never how it is. Rather, a little fight ensues between us and S&S as to what their mom really wants to do to celebrate her birthday. And every year, it makes me mad.

This year I decided we were not going to repeat that scenario. When I suggested to Steve that he call his mother and make plans to celebrate her birthday, we also discussed, prior to his calling her, what restaurant, what time, and plans for afterwards that would work best for us. Namely, arriving at the restaurant before the noon rush and then returning to our house where I could put Joey down in his own bed for his nap. He called her up, and she said that sounded fine with her.

When Steve got off the phone, I went and emailed S&S. I informed them of our plans and invited them to join us. I also told them that if they had already made other plans, “by all means, carry on.” Needless to say, that approach successfully averted the annual fight over what to do for Steve’s moms’ birthday.

Scene 4

So the time came to make plans for Steve’s birthday. When he said he wanted to go to dinner at Valentino’s, I suggested that he set the time at 11:45 so that we could beat the noon rush and not have to wait to be seated. He called everyone and let them know what he wanted to do, and everyone said they would come.

I didn’t say anything to anyone about my distaste for waiting for S&S. None of them read my blog, and even if someday they do, I have said nothing that I am worried about hiding. I simply went along with quiet plans to not sit and wait while we watched other people eat and listened to our stomachs growl.

We arrived at the restaurant five minutes early, and Steve’s mom pulled in right behind us. We went inside together and they seated us immediately. The waitress asked us for our drink orders and gave us plates so we could head over to the buffet and start eating whenever we were ready.

Then we started doing what we normally do when we arrive at a restaurant on time but S&S aren’t there yet: somebody notices out loud that S&S are late, and then they start telling stories about previous times they’ve all gotten together and S&S have been late, including the one where Steve and his mom sat in a restaurant and waited two hours before S&S showed up (this was before I met Steve). So not only are you irritated at them being late for the present occasion, you can get even more irritated as you hear the tales of other times they’ve been late as well. Not my idea of fun.

My contribution to the conversation was to mention that as soon as our drinks arrived, I was going to head over to the buffet and get some food, regardless of whether S&S were there yet. I simply stated that they were the ones who were being rude by being late. No one said much, and the stories continued while we waited for our drinks.

They brought our drinks, and I encouraged Steve to go over to the buffet and get some food first since he was the birthday boy. His mom said, “Well, I guess we could get salad,” and they both got up and headed over to the salad bar. When they returned, I got up and got some pizza (I’m not a fan of salad bars). We all enjoyed our food and the conversation about S&S always being late was not continued.

Shortly after 12:00, S&S arived. They came in, saw us eating, and once they had put their things down, they headed over to the buffet and got food for themselves. Nothing was said of their arriving late or of our starting to eat without them. We all just enjoyed our meal as though nothing had happened.

Conclusion

I’m thinking that my stealth method of simply changing our approach rather than having a big confrontation is working. Everyone seems to get along fine and we don’t waste time sitting around stewing about how other people don’t do things they way we think they should.

Granted, there has been more than one occasion where I received and email the next day from S about something that was said or done that she disagreed with. However, I have not yet received such an email today.

If I do receive such an email, I am prepared. I will simply tell her that I assume they are not aware of how their habitual lateness affects others, and I will fill her in on the details, many of which I have shared here. Then whatever petty little issue she has decided to bring up [and I do mean petty] can be given a little perspective.

Usually when I receive such little emails, I apologize perfusely even when I don’t think I am at fault. Occasionally my husband reads the emails (I never mention them to him) and grumps about how ridiculous they are…so I’m not the only one who finds them irritating.

I mean, I realize that you can’t change people, and that everyone isn’t always going to behave as you would like them to. I just get angry at myself when I don’t stand up for myself and I just take it. There is no reason why we should have to sit around and wait for them every time we get together.

Next time one of our children is baptized (if, indeed, we have another child), when we ask them to be the godparents (as they were for both Ben and Joey), I will see to it that we make it clear to them that if they are unable to be there on time, Steve’s uncle and aunt can serve in their place. The priest can just hold off on the paperwork until it’s all said and done.

I have no intention of making it a habit to be late when we go to their house just to get even because I don’t want them to think that is acceptable behavior. I will see to it that when they come to our house, if they are bringing food, it will be something that enhances the meal but is not essential to it. That way, if they choose not to arrive on time, we can start eating without them. If that bothers them, I’ll just kindly explain to them the effect their habitual lateness has on others.

The End.