Annoyances, or, My Sister's Wedding

I start my new schedule on Saturday, meaning I have only today as a day off until Thursday. It happens, I'm cool with that. They gave me a late start for tomorrow as well. Amy woke me softly around 11AM. That was nice. I went back to sleep and was jarred awake by GlaDOS and JoCo. It was my sister, Anne.

I sent it to voicemail.

Anne is the oldest of my younger sisters, and she's getting married this year as well. She's attempting to prod me into buying a plane ticket now so I'll attend.

I don't assume it's because she wants to see me, or have me there. She's never cared for me much, and the feeling is rather mutual. While I was away at college she spent years poking holes in my boat, driving my father further from me. It's a long story that we'll skip today.

Needless to say, with my own wedding in the planning stages for later in the year, I'm not terribly keen on going. She's getting married in White Plains, NY, or Tarrytown, I don't recall. She hasn't sent out save the dates and doesn't appear to have a web site up. I have a penis and I know these are the things you need to do, especially with your wedding six months away.

She hadn't tried to arrange flight discounts, and the ones she has now (after I mentioned it, she finally called to ask) aren't helpful in the slightest. ATX to NY an expensive trip these days as it is, and when you're paying to for two it starts to add up.

Today she gets a half-brained idea that because her flight somewhere for her honeymoon was only $300 each way with a stop in Dallas that if we flew out of Dallas, it would be half that.

I guess she won't be headed to travel school any time soon. Or learning anything about geography if she hasn't up to this point.

Last night, I told Amy that I no longer wanted to go. I'd much rather focus on our own wedding and deal with our technology issues than spend nearly $1000 on a trip to NY to see my least favorite sister marry a guy I've met twice. She's willing to defer to me on this one. I'm still toying with the idea.

As Anne elected to IM me as well to try to sell me on her ridiculous Hotwire idea, I told her what I'd been thinking. She tells me that I "kind of have to go."

Strike one.

I tell her that it will difficult to do financially. She responds that she'll likely make ours because she'll have her wedding gifts by then.

This has to do with the price of tea in China how?

I learn that she doesn't expect gifts, she expects cash. Why cash? She'll need to pay off a $1000 credit card bill for her wedding. Everything I've read tells me that this is a major faux pas. If you can't afford your own wedding, you scale back, not expect the guests to foot the bill.

Strike two.

I end the conversation shortly thereafter, as I didn't want to deal with this any more on my one day off. I filled in Amy, my mother and our friend Miriam on the goings on. As both Amy and my mother are at work and aren't likely to respond to texts, the only feedback I got was from Miriam. She agrees that I shouldn't go.

What do you think, cats and kittens? Does it make me a bad person, or just a bad brother. I can live with the latter. There are two other sisters that I like much better than Anne will balance this out for me. I have no qualms if she and her future husband don't attend my wedding. It's a long trip. I can understand these things.

By the way, we've moved our wedding to October 25. We were able to get the chapel that day. I'll be posting about it on the wedding blog later today. We're looking at a small wedding, but don't fret if you're not invited. We plan to do our best to find ways to hang out with people where they live. Mostly because I need a means of getting to see all my NC and Florida people :)

I think I'm just going to get Anne a gravy boat and our condolences. I'll also be conveniently losing the receipt for it. ;)