Julep: rich

Today's rant will feature my younger sister, she of the massive narcissism and parsimony.

I think y'all know that J-Mama bought Little Sister's house. She's been living there for almost a decade, first at a markedly-below and more recently at a slightly-below market rate rent. I had no problem with Lil Sis living there for cheap while she and/or her husband were in school or looking for permanent employment ... but then her husband got a real job and Lil Sis decided she didn't want to go back to work when her son was born. I give all respect to stay-at-home moms, but if one salary can't support your family in the lifestyle to which you aspire, then you ought to get a job. Milking your mother to underwrite your housing is not an acceptable option for a thirty-year-old parent with a master's degree and marketable skills. (J-Mama agreed with me, and this is when the rental rate increased.)

That was four years ago. In the meantime, Lil Sis has been all the time expecting my mom to do things for them at the house like take a tree down in the back yard - the type of things you might ask your landlord if you could do, but not the type of things you would expect the landlord to pay for. J-Mama has gotten tired of Lil Sis's endless requests for upgrades. She has also very nearly gotten the mortgage paid off. She has decided that come October (when the mortgage is gone), Lil Sis will no longer pay rent. J-Mama can't give the house to her outright for tax reasons, but Lil Sis will be responsible for paying the home insurance and the property taxes, and if the place needs a new water heater or Lil Sis wants nicer landscaping, that will be something that Lil Sis has to figure out how to pay for. Someday (a very long time from now, I hope), when J-Mama passes on, Lil Sis will inherit her house.

All of this is background. J-Mama is turning 60 in October, and a few months ago she thought she would like to celebrate with a party, until she decided that it would be a lot of trouble to plan and maybe no one would want to come anyway. Big Sis and I thought she was wrong about that, and so we are planning it for her without telling her (and y'all, the responses from invited guests have been so sweet, I can't tell you how wrong she was about thinking no one would want to come). After a couple of chats to plan, Big Sis and I rather reluctantly decided that we needed to invite Lil Sis in on the planning. While she is a pain in the tuchus, we didn't want her to feel left out of celebrating our mother.

We might as well not have bothered. Although Lil Sis got all high and mighty about not having been included earlier when I first called her to get her up to speed, she has shown her true colors quick enough. I sent a long email to get everyone on board with the tasks we still have to hammer out, with items flagged for each of us. It was incredibly tactful in asking for her participation - we don't have time to do paper invites and will just use email unless she wants to take that on, could she visit the site and report back so that we could talk about decorating, could she bake a couple of cakes. Keep in mind that she is the only one of the three of us who lives in town and has no full-time job.

Not only does she not have time for anything, except maybe she will bake one cake (and please note that I, who have a full-time job, will bake two), she refuses to contribute financially. That's right. This chick, who as of next month will never ever have to pay one thin dime towards her housing costs ever again for the rest of her life, will not even make a token gesture towards paying for her mother's birthday party. Seriously.

I would like to smack her a la Cher in Moonlighting.