killing the koozies for now

if i’m at work when you’re reading this i’m killing a family tradition…

…and i’m the only vote on that shit.

see, back in december i texted my cousin asking if we were still doing a mcgathering. he said we were, and i said that was good because i’d had the koozies made in advance for a change. i always get em made around cyber monday to get a deal, then eat up said deal paying rush production, but went far enough in advance that they came out a big (five bucks) cheaper not waiting till the last minute. but it wasn’t the discount so much as the discount AND stress that made it a temptation.

but alas, rona said “no”, so i just mailed everyone their koozies and was done with it. only one cousin posted in the group chat to thank me and show it being used…

…and everyone said we’d make up for it at easter. i liked this because, in the middle of all this, campbell (my oldest cousin’s middle kid) wrote an essay that got published stating that the first mcgathering (2016) was his favorite xmas memory, and with us missing this last one during his senior year of high school, i thought an easter one during his last high school semester would be cool.

so two weeks ago i texted my cousin outside the group text (so he wouldn’t feel pressured) and just said, “hey, man – easter’s two weeks away…we doing this thing? spoiler alert – i already made easter 2021 koozies”.

i’m writing this a week after that text with no response. next week i’ll make labels, pull addresses off the group text, and mail out with a note saying, “my bad…i’d SWEAR we said easter was a thing…” and that’ll be it. i’m not making another one for a few years.

they’d talked about trying to do a thing around my birthday but honestly i’m not behind that. i feel the mcgathering should be about all our family as a whole, not just one individual, and i’m not about to let my fittyith be about anything but me. just the way it is. plus, they talked about it, but nobody ASKED me if i was cool with it. nobody asked the ufc if we had plans. they just thought “well, it’s mid-way between xmas times, so it’s perfect” but it’s far from. it’s about me, not them.

let me erase one of their birthdays.

so here’s the easter one – did i mail it or am i hanging with em right now? look below the pic and i’ll update the status that morning.

“C” – none of the above. we’re NOT getting together (as stated in our family group text this past week…he never returned my personal one which, yes, i do take personally…and i haven’t mailed em. there’s some other development, family-drama-wise, that i’ll be addressing this week (in a good way) so i’ll get the extra addresses then and then probably skip xmas 2021 at least)