Something (Not) to Look Forward To

Well, it looks like I'm doomed to be the butt of old-maid jokes again at the annual, inescapable and excruciating Carlos family reunion, which my mother says is scheduled for January 2. I can't think of a worse way to begin the year than to have your unchanged civil status announced over a microphone to eighty of your relatives by a host with all the sensitivity of a circling vulture. If she dares to humiliate me even more this year by reminding everyone of the 22-year old niece who got preggers, married and gave birth (yes, in that order) all within the past 365 days while I was still kneeling on the starting blocks... man, I can't promise I won't come over and strangle her with her own microphone cord.

I'm trying to think of a way to get out of that party, but the only things that come to mind which will not have my mother holding the "guilt card" over my head are to contract an infectious disease or to drop dead all of a sudden. I honestly hate these big reunions; I always have. I'm uncomfortable engaging in stupid chit-chat about what kind of work I'm in or how much I make. I don't want to have to offer any excuses about why I'm still just as single as I was last year. Most of all, I am uncomfortable knowing I am surrounded by couples and their children; painfully aware that I am the odd man out. Damn, can't we all just stay in each of our own homes for a change and privately snarf through the media noche leftovers? Party schmarty. I'd rather run a Zildjian drumstick into my eyeball.