Adventures with Aunty

We drove up from Brisbane to Maryborough for the engagement party.  Arriving at Elvie's place early, Aunty announced: "We're going to the RSL for something to eat."  Years ago, she swore that she'd never eat Elvie's cooking again after witnessing her wipe her sweaty brow with a teatowel while she was drying up.

That was her all over.  If she ever saw you do anything that might be even a little bit "off", she never forgot, reminded you of it for years after, and told the whole world about it.  She's still spreading the rumour that I didn't bathe as a child.  So, writing about her is my revenge.  Sweet.

At the party, Aunty sat stiffly along the wall while the rest of us hoed into the buffet.  "Not eating, Aunty?"  She sniffed.  "There's nothing here I can eat!  The coleslaw doesn't even have celery in it."

Unless a dish is prepared according to her own long-time recipe ... exactly ... it's just plain WRONG and inedible.  I had the audacity to make coleslaw at her place recently.  Never again.  I couldn't quite make out what she was complaining about to the person sitting next to her, but it was something about the onion.  I mean, it was her onion; her knife; her chopping sheet.  Where did I go wrong?  Where can a person go wrong chopping up onion for coleslaw?

Actually, it was a miracle that she had eaten at the RSL at all.  She deplored eating out for fear of the food containing rat droppings.  Or maybe, unbeknownst to her, someone in the kitchen may have licked their fingers before chopping up the vegies.

Aunty is in her 80s, but she still goes on her Wii each morning.  And she is super competitive, always checking her scores against everyone else's.  "Ha ha, I beat ya!"  With the meditation practice, she doesn't quite get the idea that it's not about defeating an opponent.

But watching her flap her scrawny arms in the flying exercise was too much for me.  It was the funniest thing I have ever seen.

I still find it hard to believe that this woman is actually my mother's sister.  This strange, vain woman who introduced her own sister as her mother because she didn't want anyone to think she was that old.