One of my greatest pet peeves is when people include themselves in another person’s singular event. For example, I can’t stand it when people say, “We got pregnant.” Um… biological males do not get pregnant. It’s impossible. A man deposits his sperm into a fertile woman and she gets pregnant. Once she’s pregnant, his part of babymaking is over until the baby is born.

I know people say “we got pregnant” so that the man feels like he is a part of the pregnancy. But until that fetus is dancing on his bladder from the inside, he has no idea. Until his nether regions are ripped up or his abdomen is cut open to get the baby out, pregnancy is not an experience he can relate to. Hey… until he has a positive pregnancy test, and it’s not because he has a disease (testicular cancer), he’s never been pregnant and, therefore, is not a part of “we” in “we got pregnant”. Fuck that. Incidentally, a man doesn’t “deposit his seed”, either. Sperm is fertilizer, not seed. If one is going to use the euphemism “seed”, it makes more sense for it to refer to the woman’s egg. Fertilizer isn’t the same thing as seed.

But I realize that’s just me… and I am a lot more uptight about language than most people are. I am also an irritable person, especially as I get older. This morning, I encountered yet another annoyance. This time, it was in the Duggar Family News group. Someone had posted a screenshot of Sierra Dominguez and her baby, who was just diagnosed with RSV bronchiolitis. Sierra, who despite having been helicoptered with her baby boy to Children’s Hospital in Little Rock, Arkansas, had the time and composure to write a lengthy Instagram post complete with several pictures regarding her son’s medical condition. Behold:

I have to admit, I stopped reading when I read “we were diagnosed”. Yes, I’m that uptight about language. I get that momma Sierra is concerned about her baby, but unless she’s also coughing, wheezing, and feeling horrible, there is no “we” in this case of RSV bronchiolitis. The baby is sick. You’re not, Sierra… at least not yet. Hang around the hospital for awhile, and that could change. Unless she actually is sick… which maybe she is.

Anyway, that’s just me and my pet peeves. I do hope baby Merrick recovers quickly and no one else gets sick. I’m sure Sierra is scared, and posting on Instagram is one way she gets moral support. Still, while she’s understandably very worried about her son, he’s the one who’s sick. She doesn’t have a diagnosis of RSV; he does. Correct pronoun use is essential.

Moving on…

Looking at the photos from Sierra’s Instagram post just reminded me of another unpleasant memory. It’s unrelated to Sierra’s situation or the fact that I hate it when people include themselves in someone’s individual experiences (ie: “How are WE doing today?”). Sierra has included a photo of her baby boy, wrapped up in blankets and hooked up to machines. And that reminded me of the summer of 2014, when my father was dying after he’d had emergency gallbladder surgery.

I have three sisters. They’re all significantly older than I am. They were 13, 11, and 8 years old when I was born. Because of the age gap, sometimes my sisters treat me like I don’t have any sense. They become manipulative to the point of insulting my intelligence and my character. This has happened so much in my life that I have become exquisitely sensitive to it, to the point at which I get really angry when it happens. I think being manipulative, rather than being straightforward, is the height of disrespect.

In the summer of 2014, Bill had just left the Army and was job hunting. Just before my dad’s gallbladder attack, he was in talks to join Cubic, a government contractor, on an assignment in Stuttgart, Germany. We were living in San Antonio, Texas at the time, while my parents were in Hampton, Virginia. We didn’t have a lot of money to spare, nor was it the greatest time for us to drop everything and fly to Virginia. We had just a few weeks to plan our international move.

One of my sisters, who is worse about being manipulative than the other two, went to Virginia and took a picture of my father lying in his hospital bed, tethered to machines and covered with a huge CPAP mask (he’d had severe sleep apnea). She sent me the photo with a very shitty two line email about how I needed to come to Virginia to see him. Naturally, I was extremely pissed off at her for taking that photo and sending it to me as if I needed convincing that the situation was serious. I didn’t need her to send me a picture of my dad in that condition, nor was I taking orders from her. I was in touch with our mom, who had been keeping me apprised of the situation. I didn’t need her input or “help”. However, because we were already stressed out and I knew ripping my sister a new one would make things much worse, I simply replied with “Thanks for the update.”

I don’t know why my sister felt it was necessary to take a picture of our father on the brink of death as a means of convincing me to come to Virginia. I found it very hurtful that she’d assume that I needed that kind of “proof” that he was that ill. She basically sold me short, assuming that I’m that much of a selfish asshole that I needed to see a photo of him on his deathbed. By sending that picture, she implied that I didn’t care about our dad. I did care about him. In fact, I loved him. I didn’t always like him very much, but I had good reasons for feeling that way. It was neither appropriate for her to send that picture of him to me to try to convince me to visit, nor was it even really her business.

My sister is a controlling person, and I think she has trouble trusting that people will do the right thing. I don’t understand why she feels so free to be such an asshole to me, since I’m sure she doesn’t do this shit to everyone she encounters. In retrospect, maybe I should have sent her the seething, scathing email I had composed in my mind and in a blog post that I later deleted, because I was so hot with fury when I wrote it. Maybe she would have gotten the point that I’m now a grown woman and she would get a lot further with me if she’d simply make respectful requests or suggestions rather than manipulative demands. I can’t stand manipulators. They really piss me off.

Incidentally, I don’t remember if I told our mother that my sister took the photo. I don’t think I did, because I knew it would upset her. I’m sure she would NOT have approved of it. It was unnecessary, disrespectful, and just plain RUDE— and more to him, than to me.

But then, as if the tasteless photo of our dad wasn’t enough, when it became clear that my dad was going to die very soon, this same sister sent me instructions on how to speak to our mother! She wrote, “If you call Mom, please be kind…” As if I wouldn’t have been kind to our mother under these circumstances. She seems to forget that speaking to people in crisis was to be my career. I actually have professional training in it. Aside from that, I’m not such an asshole that I would deliberately pick a fight with our mom, especially as her husband of 56 years is on his deathbed.

Once again, I resisted the strong urge to tell my sister, in no uncertain terms, to go fuck herself. However, I ultimately responded, once again, with “Thanks for the update.” That’s all that really needed to be said, although the temptation to escalate the situation was definitely there. I was really pissed. What sucks is that the situation doesn’t escalate when I respond calmly, but I’m still left furious that, once again, I’m being forced to interact with an asshole… because I assure all of my readers, I don’t start this shit. I do my very best to avoid people who piss me off. They contact me, and usually with ill-conceived emails, unexpected visits, private messages, or public comments on Facebook or my blog. 🙂

I had actually forgotten about that incident involving my sister sending our dad’s photo… but Sierra’s Instagram picture of her baby in the hospital brought it all roaring back to me. I think if my sister does something like that when it’s time for our mom to pass, I will give in to the urge to tell her that it’s not appropriate to send pictures of people who are on their deathbeds as a means of getting other people to do your bidding. I think I will also tell her that if she thinks so little of me that she feels the need to be manipulative, she can count herself minus a sister. Life is much too short to have to deal with that crap.

Ah well… it’s Sunday, foggy, and chilly. Guess I’ll quit writing this post and go work on a puzzle.