I found you here, now please just stay for a while

My Dad and the Dad in Atasinchi are very eerily similar. Their personalities I mean, not the looks. My Dad is much better-looking.

One of the most hateful thing about life is that you can't choose your own family members. You have to make do with what/ whom you are given, whether you like it or not. I think if there's an award for one of the most dysfunctional families ever, my family would've won.

I'm not talking about immediate family members, even though they've given me enough headaches to last a lifetime. I'm talking about my extended family members. I have an aunt who's so materialistic that she becomes snobbier than before, I have a cousin who's so stingy he and his wife never gave any of the younger family members or even newborn babies duit raya. I have an uncle who's so intent on looking at other people's faults that he's practically blind when it comes to his own children's mistakes. I even have a cousin who airs her dirty linens and bedroom stories, literally, to anyone who listens.

Trust me, that's just some of it. I should also mention about this one family member (I refuse to acknowledge our relationship) who believes in bomohs more than I trust the power of Jem (and I trust Jem more than anyone/anything else on Earth). She would go and meet a bomoh for even the most merepek things. If her children refused to eat, then to the bomoh she would go. If she took a fall, she would immediately go to the bomoh too. Believe me, the bomoh has become a millionaire since the first time she met him.

Oh wait, maybe I should tell you the story about the daughter-in-law of my mom's cousin who is a breast cancer victim. This story is simply outrageous, even to my own ears. You see, one day, she discovered a lump on her left breast. Instead of going to a doctor and have herself checked, you know what she did? She went to see a bomoh instead. And then of course lah the bomoh said that she's the victim of a buatan orang and something like that. After a while, another lump was discovered on her right breast. And again, to the bomoh she went. After things had gotten worse and the pain had became more than unbearable, she finally took her ass to a clinic. Because her case was so severe, she was transferred to a hospital immediately and the doctors performed a removal surgery not long after that. Now, she has no breast to speak of.

I can be very generous with my sympathy, but believe me, I don't waste any of it on her.

Actually, I wanted to write about a cousin whose son is going to be married at the end of this year. This is the stingy cousin I told you earlier. At first, the cousin wanted to invite 300 guests and wanted my mom and another cousin (his sister) to cook for the guests. Maybe I should tell you that my cousin is fucking rich. His family lives in a townhouse, the son who's getting married is an engineer, and he himself holds a very high position with Felda (and thus one of the reasons why I like to find faults with Felda). This is the same person who doesn't want to waste his money on caterings and such. He even had my mom to do the hantaran shits for his son's engagement party (and for the wedding too I think). Okay lah, my mom does the hantaran for everyone she knows, but come on, not even an acknowledgement came from their side of the family about my mom's money spent on the extra shits and sleepless nights. Even My Dad was outraged about that, and my Dad rarely gets mad about almost anything.

Oh well, about the cousin, after much heated discussions and all, finally he relented on the catering topic. And here's the punchline. He wants to invite fewer guests! 200 people to be exact. My, that's rich. I wonder why I (and everyone else) didn't foresee that beforehand. My family had a good mengumpat session last night.

That's all I know. For now. Oh I forgot, the cousin's son is marrying his boss's daughter. So, the family is berlagak and all about that too.

Meh. I really hate them. Dahlah tak kenal Jack White siapa. And that, people, is the biggest sin of all.