When people tell you things about yourself

This past Christmas I attempted to patch a rocky relationship with my Aunt. She was a very significant figure in my life during middle school when I had no friends and then she just got "weird" as my sister and I like to say. She and my mother have not been speaking for almost two years and as a result I hardly see her. Its a long story that has very little to do with this blog but lets put it this way- Italians can hold grudges and add to that competitive sisters, you have yourself a match made in hell. I digress...

While visiting my Aunt for a Christmas lunch we had run out of things to talk about and resorted to the etiquette low of "remember when" ( I had no idea that was a conversation low until recently when I read an article about the art of conversation). It started very amusing with "oh and you were in that play where you had to wear tights and an oversize shirt" or "Oh yeah Auntie I remember I saw you asleep in the audience during that show" (bless the woman for even coming to all the horrible children's shows I did). Things began to get a little ugly from her side when she started to bring up things I had forgotten as a child.

Apparently when I was about 4 she had taken me with her to a friends house who had a boy a few years older than I. He was stocky in build and sort of a bully. While the two adults were having tea we were sent to play in the yard and around the house. My Aunt informed me that an hour later they found me screaming in a tiny locked closet. When they opened the door there I stood, crying and in a puddle having peed my pants. They all laughed at me as I cried from fear of the dark and closed spaces. Funny right?

She laughed and laughed about this story like it was the funniest thing since Britney Spears tried to stage her come back. I sat there, mortified and slightly horrified that she found it so funny. I did not remember this event at all. I had sufficiently blocked it out by stuffing it down and replacing it with other horrific bully stories (like when I was held down by one kid and had my eyelids pulled open by another so a he could spit a loogie in my eye, yes my eyeball, yes a snotty wad of spit in there- or when I was tied to a tree and whipped with a rope- OR the time I was beaten with a red bat in a shack in order to be part of a "club" the bullies were forming- anyway you get the point.)

I thought of this today as I was sitting at my desk trying to complete two more tasks before I went to the bathroom. I always do this. I avoid going to the bathroom for as long as possible. My office is like a closet, my job like a bully and it got me thinking about this gem of a story...

Its amazing when someone tells you something you completely forgot and think " You bitch! That shit screwed me up pretty good!" while they laugh and laugh and laugh at your misfortune. Good times.

PS- She did apologize for telling the story with such joy and guffawing-However seeing as I am half Italian, the damage was done and the grudge born.