Family Vacations

There is one thing that an extended family vacation always manages to remind you and that is there is a reason you don't still live at home. Anytime you have too many people involved in making a decision about anything, it always ends in a stalemate. You can't please anyone and those that don't get their way seem to be the ones who like to throw tantrums (and I don't mean the kids). It also amazes me how many filthy people there are in a family. This isn't the people who don't take showers, these are the ones who look perfectly normal. They drive nice cars, wear nice clothes and have good jobs. Graduate level degrees hang on their walls, yet they can't seem to throw empty cans in the garbage. They refuse to hand wash a couple of pots when the dishwasher is full. It appears they forget how to function without the prescence of their housekeeper and that is where my place is solidified in our family. I am the the built in housekeeper. It is a natural tendency that I have. Not really a flaw at all, so it isn't something I am interested in changing. I pick up and straighten things around me. I wash things that are dirty. I generally make sure things are taken care of and they probably know that will happen. In short, my vacation is never that. I am the only one who takes my full-time job with me. The only one who gets a break from nothing. Even on vacation, I am a wife, mother and apparently, domestic engineer. Thank God I don't live with these people regularly or I would probably have to find a job outside the home.