*Sigh.*
So my cousin is getting married in June in L.A. This means my parents are flying out, and thought they’d take the opportunity to come up and visit us in SF afterward. Simple, right? WRONG.
My mother, as she does, has come up with a flurry of complicated plans. She had told me that my brother had suggested driving all of us back up to SF and spending some time together.
“All of us?” I said. “We’ll have to rent a van.”
“Oh sure,” my mother said.
Then today she told me that IF my brother wanted to drive, THEN she and my father would both come up to SF and stay with us for a few days before driving back down with my brother. (They need to be back in L.A. for the weekend to look after my grandmother while my uncle, aunt, and her side of the family go to Las Vegas.)
BUT, if my brother didn’t want to drive, then only my mother would come up and my father would stay with my brother, and in that case my mother would stay a whole week instead of just a few days.
Oh my head is spinning.
ANOTHER scenario is that she’ll convince my dad to go to SF no matter what (ie, even if my brother doesn’t drive, though why that’s a determining factor I have no idea), and they’ll stay a whole week.
A whole frigging week.
Tactfully as I could, I said our place is actually not that big so that while they could stay a few days (hopefully more like two), a hotel might be better, and I promised to do research.
My mother seemed keen on this idea, but then suddenly said, “You know, you guys should pay for the hotel.”
I was thinking that same thing, out of guilt, and said sure. Fine and dandy, right?
Wrong.
“You didn’t even offer,” my mother huffed. “You didn’t even think of it first.”
So after I a) offer to research hotels, and b) agree to pay for it, she still criticizes me. I was so frigging annoyed.
But because I’m such a wuss when it comes to my mom, I did a little research and called back to very nicely inform her of current hotel pricing. “Too expensive,” she kept saying though she seemed to have gotten over her huff.
There is just no winning with her, my brother said. You’re going along, you’re trying your best, and then there’s this secret behavior that you’re supposed to engage in, and if you don’t, you’ve totally failed.
By the way, it turned out my brother never offered to drive them. It was all her own idea. What is wrong with her???
Haaaaa, I’m sorry, but that totally made me laugh.
Here I was thinking your brother had come up with the driving idea. You can get awesome deals on Priceline in SF (under $80 a night for swanky hotels), I used to do it frequently when I was too lazy to go home on nights I wanted to go out. I’ll have to email you my techniques.
all you can do is laugh sometimes. priceline sounds like a great idea. i will probably do that at the last minute, see what deals pop up.
You should have said that you didn’t bring up paying for the hotel because you had wanted to surprise her and now she RUINED the surprise! That turns it around on HER and now SHE’S totally inconsiderate. Yes, I have been schooled by the best of crazy ladies…my grandmother!
haha, that rules! i should remember that next time. the problem is whenever i talk to my mother, i get all riled up and can’t think clearly!