Monday, August 22, 2005

In-Laws Faux Pas

Yesterday was my niece Maggie’s first birthday, and my sister Meghan put together a lovely party in her backyard. There was food, there was cake, there were relations from both sides of the family, and piles of gifts.

One of the gifts was an electronic toy that had a screen with a little car inside, and there was a big plastic steering wheel below the screen to steer the little car back and forth as it drove along a curvy pretend road, which had pictures of buildings and trees along each side. I watched one of my sister’s in-laws steer the little car off the road, over the pictures of the buildings and trees, back onto the road, then off again and over the buildings and trees on the other side.

I said, “You know what that is? That’s baby Grand Theft Auto! Look! She just ran over a cop! And there’s the little hooker you can pick up!”

I thought it was funny. My sisters thought it was funny. Meghan’s religious conservative in-laws? Mmmmm, not so much.

Their lips weren't moving, but I'm pretty sure I could hear them praying for me in their heads.

2 comments:

Lin said...

In-Laws Faux-Pas really, really made me laugh. It's easy to offend the just a bit too religious ones and sometimes just impossible to resist. The whole idea of a Baby Grand Theft also made complete sense to me. Here in L.A., half the mothers (and most of their baby daughters) look like hookers and then you find out they have degrees in anthropology or law. Then you watch 'em driving a big, black Hummer, talking on the ubiquitous cell phone, flicking long, golden hair and generally acting as though they're driving solo and you think that these folks are anthropologically a little bit interesting, in a weird and stunted way. But I digress!

Thanks for your kind words in my blog.

Anonymous said...

Ha! Well, I would have been one of the ones laughing.