Family is enemies you don’t get to choose.
–Tom B. Taker

Once again that special time of year is nigh upon us. The holidays. Where we gather with family and friends around fire and hearth to poke at each other’s eyeballs with forks.

Run. I mean that in a T-Rex-is-gaining-on-us-in-the-Jeep sort of way.

From time to time my wife will venture out to work for the Portland elite to line her pocketses with a few handfuls of coppers. She hangs out her shingle as consultant and efficiency expert. That means, of course, employers will spend their entire day trying to trick her into changing diapers, walking the dog and running to Starbucks for another Cornucopia of Venti.

The following is a true story. No embellishment.

It was Thanksgiving. The husband’s parents arrived for a two-week stay. The day after Thanksgiving the wife took off, on her own, to vacation separately in Palm Springs until the in-laws had safely left town.

Why didn’t I think of that?! Stoopid, stoopid, stoopid. Me so stupid! Me bad.

With the in-laws left home alone, the husband locked himself away in the office. The nanny watched their children. And the mother-in-law proceeded to grill household staff. “What the hell does she do around here, anyway?”

God bless us, every one.