The Crazy Old Uncle at the Table — and Why Nobody Stops Him
Do you remember the worst family dinner you have ever attended?
Perhaps you had just arrived. Perhaps you were already seated, enjoying the food and a pleasant conversation with the person next to you. Everything seemed fine — almost too fine.
Then, at a particular moment, a sharp noise from the other end of the table. Maybe a glass shattered on the floor. Maybe it was a short, angry sentence thrown like a knife. The entire room went silent.
Discomfort spread quickly across the table. You knew it immediately: the dinner was ruined. Again.
We are now seated at a similar, deeply uncomfortable dining table.
Yes, there have always been glitches. Uncle Vladimir has been seizing Cousin Volodymyr’s land for years, despite repeated complaints from other family members. Cousin Ali and Cousin Benjamin have never seen eye to eye. None of this is new.
But this year feels different.
Uncle Don — the wealthiest of the family, famous for being reckless and relentlessly transactional — has grown visibly impatient. He first forced Cousin Nicolas to leave his own house. Now he is pointing at Auntie Mette, insisting he wants her backyard, by hook or by crook.
Cousin Mark looks terrified, quietly wondering whether he will be the next to be slapped.
The dinner is screwed, you think to yourself.
Usually, after the long, suffocating silence, someone would clear their throat and say something — anything — pretending nothing has happened. More often than not, the one throwing the tantrum is among the elderly, which means he stays.
If you are involved, you might have quickly run through some unspoken rules that you were told since you were young:
• Do not confront elders.
• Try not to escalate.
• Pick your fight.
• Things will calm down eventually.
Then you would consider whether you should pretend nothing happened and continue to chew your food, or whether you should leave the room early to show your stand. Do you shout back to Uncle Don one more time, or do you just pack your stuff and leave quietly?
If you are not directly involved, the rule is simple: keep your mouth shut. But deep in your mind, you are pondering what Cousin Mark just told you, and you wonder how long you can tolerate the dinner.
Then you recall the previous family dinner, and the one before. You realize things seemed different now.
Of course the elderly threw tantrums. For example, Uncle Vladimir targeted Cousin Volodymyr particularly, almost all the time. You felt it was tolerable because Uncle Vladimir didn’t bang the table or throw glasses, so you let it go.
And Uncle Xi, who smiled at everybody at the dinner table — but you heard he runs some monkey business somewhere. Anyway, you just needed to finish the dinner and go home.
But this year, the dinner is not the same.
Uncle Don is so aggressive. Every item you wear — more precisely, everything you have in your house — could be his target. He is not just throwing a tantrum. He is trying to get as much as he can.
He insists that Auntie Mette’s backyard used to belong to his great-grandfather, that Cousin Mark should return home to live with him, and that Cousin Miguel should leave the table.
“What a crazy old uncle!” you say to yourself.
Then you recall Uncle Don is exactly the opposite of Uncle Jimmy and Uncle Bill, or even Uncle Barack — they were kind and generous.
Uncle Don is being practical. Like anyone else, he wants to become wealthier.
You suddenly realize, with a cold sweat —
Uncle Don is not crazy. It’s you who are crazy.
You thought Uncle Don was (and would still be) throwing tantrums because you expected the elderly of the family to take care of the younger generations. That was why you respected the elderly.
The reality was chilling.
Uncle Don is the kind of elderly who does not consider it necessary to support the next generation. In fact, he considers himself at the same level as you. In a way, he wants everybody to play the same NBA game with him — no matter your shooting skills or your height.
And if you admit that you cannot win, he will take a piece from you, depending on his preference. It could be your factory. Or your apartment.
Now you understand: this is not the crazy old uncle at the dinner table.
This is Charles Dickens’s Mr. Scrooge — cold-hearted and self-deluded.
So what do you do if you must dine with Mr. Scrooge?
Will you choose to sit at the farthest corner and just observe? Go to lesser-liked uncles for their protection? or try to work with your other cousins and team up against him, as suggested by Cousin Mark?
At some point, you stop asking whether the dinner can be saved.
The question becomes simpler, and much harder: how do you survive a table where no one feels responsible for you anymore?
Mr. Scrooge does not shout because he is angry, nor grab because he is confused. He takes because he can — and because you let him believe the rules will never get him.
So perhaps the real choice is not whether to confront him, appease him, or flee the table.
Perhaps the choice is whether you finally accept that this is no longer a family dinner at all — but a market, where every silence is read as consent, and every hesitation has a price.
Comments
Post a Comment