Day 82 - Dictators Rule

Every year we convene for our annual McGaugler vacation, we arrive fresh-faced and gleeful. We hug and kiss cheeks. Each of us throw our bags into some room down the hall, eager to ask the usual barrage of questions--How was the flight or drive? Job? House? Kids? In the beginning, we're all bendy and flexible for each other...

But soon enough, we settle right back into our usual roles. I take on the role of instigator, inciting heated arguments due to my lack of patience with group democracy. My sister, she's a frustrated mothering type. My brother, he's a snarky mediator. My stepsister is simply vocally annoyed by the whole thing. And my stepbrother is the 'keep me out of it' guy.

Add to that my father, whose the poster dad for "tough love" (i.e. "don't expect any kind of break just cause you're my kid"). Then, my stepmother, the opposite of my father, overreaching her attentiveness i.e. "do you need anything, what about this or this or that?!" Lastly, throw in a couple of moody teenagers, a beautiful baby, and some half-terrified spouses. THEN, it's a party.

We must all sense the impending boom because most of the adults, minus the recovering alcoholics, grab beers as soon as their suitcases hit the floor. We cross our fingers that our impulses aren't a sign of our own future recovery. But Fuggetaboutit. We swig.

It's normally all fine and dandy until the family meeting. Every year we circle around the living room floor and, according to my father's rule book on how to run a meeting based on we-have-no-idea, we discuss/vote/change/keep any and all aspects of our week-long beach side event.

There's so many differing opinions in even this small of group that I often wonder how Congress gets anything passed at all. I sigh and understand the slow uphill groan of bureaucracy. It's times like these I think, despite popular opinion, dictatorship ain't half-bad. The fact of the matter is: Most people don't know what's good for em'. Case in point: George W. Bush got elected. Twice. (Well at least once; that first election is debatable...)

Now our gathering is, of course, much more evolved than the half-wits who elected W., but still, I lose patience for our slow decision-making process of majority rules. (Note: my family and democracy-lovers in general just gasped and threw tomatoes at me. Whatev. I ain't taking it back!) See how I am? An instigator.

Anyhoos, besides everything, one of the major things we discuss is our family day. What San Diego attraction will we descend upon this year? We vote and much to most people's delight, it's a day at Balboa Park!

Stay tuned...