The House of Effluvia

I think my sister Tina's boyfriend, Fred, was granted cosmic payback for not attending as many of our family functions as we require of him by merit of association. You see, when you become a member of our family, even it's not a legal membership, you are absolutely beholden to attend every single family function within a 300 mile radius, cook a dish for each function and change at least one diaper per child per function.

Fred kindly but foolishly hosted a barbecue at his house this weekend (I think he was trying to discharge all of his familial obligations at once) and Tina, my brother Mark, his wife Shannon and the little vegetables, Jayden and Kyan, came over to eat and swim in the nifty lap pool, the human hamster wheel of fun and frolic.

From Tina's email about the weekend:

"...it was fun having the nephews over. Kyan was really good, smiled a lot, but also spit up a lot, and Jayden peed in Fred's house. It was funny - the wooden stairs had a little puddle on each one. He was peeing as he walked up the stairs. I was crying I was laughing so hard, then Kyan spit up all over. It was like, Hello fred's house! Pee, puke, whatever! Bring it on!"

And now Fred will never, ever come to any function again.