For the_vulture‘s prompt.
This is in the Aunt Family setting, which has a landing page now here (and on LJ).
I imagine the speaker to be one of Evangaline’s nieces or cousins.
“Your family is insane.”
“My family is prolific. My family is also insane, but the problem you’re dealing with right now is an entirely separate one.”
“What is this thing?”
“Cheat sheet. It’s not going to help, in the long run, but at least you’ll have some idea what you’re getting into.”
“How do you keep track of all this?”
“I really don’t. I remember a couple salient points – Anshabet, there, just had a baby, so that’s important to remember – and my mother keeps me up to date on those sorts of things, but mostly I just smile and nod and listen to the ‘eee you’ve gotten so big.'”
“You have… four aunts and three uncles.”
“No. My mother has four sisters and three brothers. They’re all married, so double those numbers. And then there’s their kids, and my mom’s the youngest, so some of those kids are old enough to be my aunts and uncles themselves. Add in my mother’s mother’s family, that’s another six aunts, two uncles, then the ones married in, and then there’s my grandmother’s family.”
“Okay, you said prolific. I didn’t think you meant…”
“That’s why there’s the chart.”
“What do you do when you forget a name?”
“Smile and hope to death they’re going deaf and didn’t hear me mess it up?”
“And you’re going to introduce me to all of them.”
“That’s why the chart, yes.”
“Is it too late to elope?”
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They will track you down afterwards and you will never hear the end of it!
Indeed!! (trust me, I know!)
(Tracked, helped with the tracking or observed from a bunker at a safe distance?)
Semi-eloped. Aunts were unhappy with me for YEARS
Six aunts and two uncles on my mother’s side (which I’m closest with) and … more (11 siblings? 13?) on my father’s side. I can keep track of most on my mother’s side, but Dad’s is a lost cause for me. XD (And, yeah, I do a lot of smiling and nodding, too…)
My father is one of 10 (5/4/1 hers, his, ours), most of whom have been married twice; his mother and HER father also came from big families. And they recycle names! I have a father David and an uncle David, an Aunt and a Great-Aunt Nancy, an Uncle and a Great-uncle Daniel, another cousin with my name… My mom’s one of three, but her mother and father both came from giant families. And one Aunt-in-law comes from a family where everyone’s name starts in J.
<giggles> I feel that way about my mother’s side of the family, sometimes, and there aren’t nearly that many people involved.
Yeah. See my comment to Vulture, above. I’ve been there, needing a chart.
hahaha! I just started Summer Wars last night, in which the heroine’s boyfriend-for-hire is introduced to her extended family at dinner. The conversation was similar, and included a diagram!
*grin* awesome. I once drew a therapist a diagram, but it wasn’t the family tree.
I could have done with a cheat sheet when meeting my wife’s family. They’re descended from good Irish Roman-catholic stock, and I swear their love-lives could give pointers to day-time soap-opera script-writers! So not only do you have to keep track of who’s related to whom, but who’s marred to who this week… Makes sending out Xmas and birthday cards a real chore.
Oh man, that is a good idea! I’m stealing it for the Angel’s family, which includes the five sets of grandparents his child has (possibly six, I can’t recall) not to mention half-brothers, a sister, and I have no idea how many cousins, aunts, and uncles. Mine is really easy to keep track of, as there are not many of us…
I always endorse charts. 😀