People

[pecunium]

Strange moments in everyday life. Went out to supper with my dad, sisters, step-mother (they are divorced now, but family is strange), and some other people. One of the other people knocked my new OBEV (to me, rummage sale score; good condistion, $.25) off the counter.

She said, "I think I knocked something down," I said, "Oh, that was my book."

"Oh, you read," in tone much as one might comment that a dog spoke. It was bizarre.

Then she refused to believe I was my sister's brother. When I said I was her brother I got a dismissive hand-wave, and, "Oh yes, I KNOW all the family."

She insisted on thinking I was someone from UT, whom my sister was dating: Much attempt at inquisition. I think this is because my sister has a boyfriend, and she was trying to find out, from me, how I had supplanted him.

Oi.

Comments

[dianyla.livejournal.com]

I take it you're the black sheep, then?

[pecunium.livejournal.com]

My family is hard to explain. Disparate, perhaps. I met my father when I was 19. In the 23 years since I've been to see him (in Tenn) a handful of times. Usually for a couple of weeks.

The sister in question (two of my three siblings in this part of the family were there) is 19.

What got me, really, was the, "you read" comment. The disdain which dripped from the words (and the follow up, "so few men here do that") was... creepy. I felt as if I'd been measured and found to be somewhat akin to something foul on a shoe.

[zeeth_kyrah]

That emotional response alone tells me exactly what's wrong with this picture.

[harimad.livejournal.com]

That is creepy. One of the many reasons I feel like a fish out of water when I visit NC family. Going to church with them makes it all the more apparent. Then there was the time I went to a Southern small-church wedding...

I shall remained creeped out. That is, when I'm not distracted by how you could have played along with the new boyfriend schtick.

[pecunium.livejournal.com]

I suppose, though that would have required a bit more awareness of the details of UT.

What was interesting was the cues she had that I wasn't eligible for the role in which she was casting me. We'd already covered my speaking four languages one of which was explained to have been gained in college.

[gerisullivan.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I got a similar level of disdain (and disgust) from a neighbor in the mid-'70s: "oh, you're a college girl." Then again, I was an outcast simply because my husband and I did the dishes and laundry together. The kitchen was at the front of the mobile home, so the neighbors could see us doing the dishes together. "My husband did the dishes once," a neighbor explained. It was when she was in the hospital during the birth of their first child. When the second child was born, he simply let the dirty dishes stack up.

And so on. It's harder when it's family, even family where there's not a lot of in-person interaction.

[pecunium.livejournal.com]

This wasn't, "college boy," it was something else. It was her first reaction, before she knew anything about me.

[starcat-jewel.livejournal.com]

Oy. On behalf of the rest of TN (where, believe me, people DO read), I apologize. Be grateful that I wasn't with you; between defense-of-friend and contempt-for-stupidity, I might not have been able to resist saying something along the lines of, "Yes, well, that's why I don't live here." And it would probably have escalated from there.

BTW, where was your sister in all this? Didn't she have anything to say regarding the mistaken assumption?

[pecunium.livejournal.com]

We were trying to explain. I gave her a nudge and said, "I think she doesn't believe me" and we went on, and she went blithely on with her assumptions that we were playing with her (and Shannon rolled her eyes at the, "you read?" comment).

[fledgist.livejournal.com]

I spent four years teaching college in Kentucky. I'd say it was something in the water in the Appalachians.

[ann-totusek.livejournal.com]

You say "Oi", I say "Eeeeeew!"

[fledgist.livejournal.com]

Good grief!

[baron-elric.livejournal.com]

Books, and people who read them, are automatically suspicious, you know. I find it very disturbing to go into houses where there are no books, or magazines. Very often, there are TVs running, unwatched, in multiple rooms of those houses. But that's normal.

[pecunium.livejournal.com]

No, she approves of people who read. She just doesn't think men read.

[fantasyecho.livejournal.com]

Wait, wait, if that's the case, shouldn't she be ... approving of you? O_o;;

well, looks like we've got ourselves a reader....

[glaucon.livejournal.com]

Re: well, looks like we've got ourselves a reader....

[lexica510.livejournal.com]

*scratches "search YouTube for appropriate Bill Hicks clip" off to-do list*

[sharon-masters.livejournal.com]

Just one of many reasons i avoid the southern US without dear friends and whips involved.