The Aunt and Uncle Crazypants Story

My Uncle Crazypants has gone into the hospital for his hip replacement surgery this morning. His wife (my Aunt) is going crazy with worry—literally. And she’s spreading it around as much as she can.

I’m trying my hardest to be compassionate, but Aunt Crazypants is stomping all over my last nerve.

I don’t hate them, but I often feel very close to that. These are two very sick people with sick personalities who like to spread the sick around as much as they can. They infect everyone they come in contact with.

Since HWSNBN and I broke up, I’ve been spending more time than I probably should with Aunt Crazypants because, while I generally enjoy her company (and she is my only living relative for miles), she’s one of those people that, give ‘em an inch, they take the whole mile and demand more. For instance, if I go to her house for coffee one morning, she expects that I will do it EVERY morning, and gets highly insulted if I don’t (she’ll call me and cry, “Why don’t you love me anymore??”).

This is not new; she’s been this insecure and demented all her life—but at 82, people think she’s just a kooky old lady; at 40, people thought she was a psycho for exactly the same behavior.

Auntie is in poor health, has no life, no friends, no pets, no relatives (except me) in the area, and never has any fun. He whole life is her husband (and he’s a jerk toward her). However, Auntie’s claim to fame is being so massively manipulative, most people agree that she’s elevated passive-aggressive behavior to an art form.

These days, since my breakup with HWSNBN, I’m finding I’m getting much better at setting BOUNDARIES. For instance, I will say, “Auntie, GET OVER IT. I don’t hate you, but I will absolutely NOT come for coffee every day.” If she doesn’t like it, that’s her problem, not mine.

When Uncle Crazypants decided to have his second hip operated on, Auntie Crazypants started pulling her old tricks. “Oh, I don’t know how Uncle is going to get to the hospital,” she would ponder aloud in a fake sing-song voice, “But… I don’t suppose you might be able to find just five minutes to help us out?”

So I laid down the law: “Auntie, I can take Uncle to the hospital. I can’t stay with him, but if all I have to do is drop him off, that’s fine.”

Auntie called last night to say that surgery is scheduled for 7am this morning, he has to be at the hospital at 6am. Keep in mind, the hospital is exactly four minutes from Auntie and Uncle’s house and there’s NO traffic at that time of the morning. Yet, Auntie was having her usual freakout conniption fit, worrying to the point of practically vomiting, and insisted that he had to leave her house no later than 5:30 am.

Compassionate me totally relates to her overwrought, illogical worries. When HWSNBN was in that terrible accident two years ago, I cried constantly and worried that he was going to die at any moment (because he actually could have). I LIVED at the hospital. So, from that respect, I get it. However, Uncle Crazypants is not in any imminent danger of dying—no more danger than any other conventional surgery.

So the logical, cranky side of me, gets mad and wants her to stop upsetting everyone and quit acting like the world is coming to an end. “But Margaret!” she sighs, “I’m SO worried about this! I have this feeling something bad is going to happen. I just KNOW it will!”

For all of Aunt Crazypants’ life, she’s been an insane drama queen. With no sense of self-respect (she is a child of abuse, both physical and sexual), she married a string of abusive husbands whose purpose in life seemed to be to reinforce her own sense of utter worthlessness. She nails herself to the cross—her whole identity is the pain of abuse—and she plays on people’s sympathy to get her own agenda in place.

She’s been married to Uncle Crazypants for about 40 years (her longest relationship ever) and while he’s not physically abusive, he is overtly controlling and considers himself the center of the universe (to be fair to him, she’s never given him any reason to believe otherwise). To me, this is the ultimate symbiotic dysfunctional relationship—he needs someone to adore him and take care of him, she needs someone to adore and take care of. It makes both of them feel important, in their own way.

However, Auntie is not altogether okay with this. She swallows her every contrasting opinion, and her own needs are constantly in conflict with what he wants. How does she do it? She drinks—a lot! She thinks he doesn’t know (she sneaks it in private), but he’s no idiot. He knows. But this is how they live.

A few years ago, Auntie’s little poodle-mix dog died at the ripe old age of 16. For as long as she’s been alive, Auntie has always owned a dog for companionship—it’s the only fun she has, the only love she feels, and it’s helped keep her somewhat sane and active as she has to walk it for exercise every day. After her dog died, Uncle refused to let her get another one saying (and I’m not making this up), “Now she can spend all her time taking care of me, not some dog.” Auntie’s health declined dramatically after that. She no longer goes outside. All she does is sit on the sofa and watch Fox News. I’ve often threatened to drop off a dog from the pound on her front stoop, but Uncle Crazypants said he’d never let her keep it—and he means it.

I try my hardest to be compassionate toward Auntie and her plight, but they’re not making it easy on me. Auntie and Uncle are poor white trash who constantly complain about their lot in life, but do nothing to improve it. Nothing. He spends all their money on internet money-making schemes (99% of which fail, but it’s the 1% that keeps him going), and she lies around, sneaking her booze, and smoking her cigarettes whenever she can get them.

So, when Uncle Crazypants needed a ride to the hospital this morning, I figured it was no big deal—it’s a kindness I can extend with no repercussions. It turned into Clash of the Titans last night when Auntie called to nail down the details. I kept reassuring her that Uncle was in excellent hands (he’s got a great surgeon) and the hospital has an excellent reputation. Besides which, he’s done this before—and came out of it with flying colors.

Auntie started in. “Can’t you come any sooner than 5:30 am? I need a hug!”

Oh Christ Jesus, here we go. “No Auntie. I’ll be there at 5:30.”

“So you’ll be here before 5:30.”

“No Auntie. I’ll be there at 5:30 to take Uncle to the hospital.”

“Well, what if there’s traffic?”

“There’s no traffic on that road, Aunt Crazypants. The hospital is four minutes away. He’ll be there in plenty of time. Stop worrying.”

“But he has to have time to get in the car. You didn’t account for that.”

“Which is, like one minute tops. Stop worrying; it’ll be fine.”

“Okay. So, you’ll be here at, what… 5:15? So you can hug me?”

“Stop it.”

“Stop what? You said 5:15.”

“No, I said 5:30.”

“Alright, then. I lo-o-ove you.”

“I love you too. See you tomorrow morning.”

“At 5:15.” *cllick*

Fuck.

This morning, I showed up at their house at exactly 5:27 am. They were standing on their stoop waiting for me. Auntie refused to even look at me—angry because I didn’t come over earlier to “hug” her. She kissed her husband, then turned and went inside slamming the door behind her.

Ya gotta love the passive-aggressives.