Familial nonsense II

Our kitchen has been on the verge of falling apart for quite some time now. Most of the handles on the drawers have fallen off; water cannot go down the sink; strange brown fluids are oozing out from underneath the cabinets. Hygienically unsound, if nothing else.



We've put it off long enough, but it looks like we're finally going to re-do the kitchen. I never knew quite how many colours kitchen cabinets and table-tops came in until now. I don't know when we'll finally all agree on them, so don't hold your breath.

***

We moved into this house about 10 years ago, and at its peak, we had nine ten people (and one dog) living in it. Still, no one had to sleep on the floor, so you can work out the rough number of rooms.

It's a shared deed, kinda like a family house, if you will, so don't get too excited -- money doesn't grow on trees for us either. It is this informal monetary arrangement that's potentially hazardous.

My aunt owns a big part of this house, and she recently made out her will to leave all of her possessions equally distributed to all her nieces and nephews. While we've never had any money struggle (mostly because there was not much money to speak of) when my grandparents passed on, this is the roof over our heads that we're talking about, and my dad was understandably wary; if either of my cousins decided they wanted their liquidated share, that will effectively force us out of the house.

So a couple of weeks ago, we were talking, and he asked how we would feel about selling this house in two years; that's when we'd have paid it off in full. We could move to a smaller apartment, because if it were just our family, we wouldn't need much space anyway.

My mom shook her head in disagreement. "No, no, big house is good."

Dad raised his eyebrows in inquisition: "Why? But what if..."

My mom put her hand up to stop him, and blinked hard at him. "If each of the children have their own room, then when they get married, they don't have to move out. They can all stay with us!" She sounded like she had this worked out for years!

I choked on my food. "So this has been your ploy all along? To get all of us to stay with you guys?" I asked incredulously.

Mom turned to me, and very matter-of-factly -- almost nonchalantly! -- replied in the affirmative: "YUH-HUH!"

"..."

***

I typically don't turn on the air-con when I sleep at night. I leave the windows and door open so that there's a steady flow of air. (The result of this has not always been pleasant, stemming mostly from a combination of heavy rain and me being quite the heavy sleeper, but that's another story for another time.)

The thing about aunts (or mine, at least) is that they have no sense of personal boundary. They barge into my room at will -- yes, even when the lights are out and it's 3 AM.

*My aunt rattles my shoulder. "Hey, are you asleep already?"

"Yesssshhhh," I mumble from underneath the covers.

"Nonsense, you're awake," she shakes her head in disapproval. "We bought supper, go down and eat."

(*Repeat twice weekly.)

***

Stay with your extended family. It's fun, and as long as they are convinced that you're still a kid, they'll keep feeding you.