Backstabbing Queen

I must have an outward demeanor that invites normal-looking people to open up about the crazy in their lives.

One afternoon last week, I stopped by a local TJ Maxx store to finish up some Christmas shopping: stocking stuffers, quirky gifts, miscellaneous food items, that sort of thing. As I always do in these stores, I opted to go cart-free. When my arms are full, I’m done.

As I went to check out, the line that had only been a few people deep when I entered the store was now wrapped up and around the aisles of the insidious eye candy that gets displayed during the holidays, items I am incapable of resisting, and I had no way of picking them up anyway. To offset the temptation (and the probable disappointment), I simply asked the woman in front of me how her day was going. We chatted for a few minutes about stocking stuffers for her grandchildren, all of whom were way too old to have this woman as their grandmother. And I told her just that. She looked amazing. 

Just for fun, let’s call my new friend Gloria. Gloria, as it turns out, is the oldest of 10 children. She looks about 55, but assuming her now 97 year-old mother wasn’t pregnant nonstop for 10 years and assuming her mother didn’t start having babies in her early teens, I assume Gloria must be about 75ish. She just looks 55. She did share with me that she is aging much better than her sisters, all of whom, according to Gloria, appear older than their years and definitely older than Gloria.

Gloria told me all about how she decorated her house this year for the holidays, foregoing the Christmas quilts in all of the extra bedrooms since no one goes in those, but making sure that every other nook in her house is beautifully decked out for the holiday. I asked if she was hosting a holiday celebration, but no, not this year. No one will see all of her decorations. Even with all of those siblings of hers.

She went to one of her sisters for Thanksgiving this year. There were 24 of them there even though six of her siblings live out of state, no doubt, according to Gloria, to get away from their mother, whom the sisters collectively refer to as the ‘backstabbing queen’. The sisters are convinced that the only reason she had 10 children is because she loves drama and 10 kids would ensure that would be plentiful. None of them like her and even now cannot wait to get away from her. 

I mentioned to Gloria that Thanksgiving must have been lovely with all of that family, even if her mother was present. I was quickly corrected and told that none of them could stand each other. Fortunately, they only spend one holiday together each year, so that’s over with.

Gloria is thinking of moving to a small town in Massachusetts. A friend of hers lives there and she heard from her that a local quilting bee lost their meeting space in a fire recently . A church in the town offered up their basement space to the group to use for free. Gloria wants to live in a place like that, a small town where neighbors help each other. She found a house in the town, but it’s on the same street as her friend, and she’s pretty sure their friendship wouldn’t survive that close proximity. I’m pretty sure she’s correct.

Before parting ways, I asked Gloria how many children she had. Three. And where they lived? Florida. All three of them. And they don’t come home for the holidays.

As she walked to the open cashier and I told her to have a lovely holiday, I glanced at the woman behind me who just smiled and made the universe finger twirling sign for cuckoo. 

Happy shopping and Happy Holidays.