So I get a call from my mom. I don't get these often, so it had to be important. She was asking if we were in fact coming down to see her for the fourth of July. We are, but that's not why she called. She told me how my brother and his wife went down to Branson last week for their anniversary. They had planned on doing a few of those "timeshare presentations" so that they could go to Dixie Stampede, because, well, that's where my wife and I went for our brief getaway honeymoon, and I guess it just isn't fair that they haven't gone there yet. These are the same ass-hats who call us up to tell us they went to DisneyLand. Let's not mention that these two couldn't afford to do any of this and rolled the dice on everything going "their way" during this trip.

They spent $90 on the hotel -- I'm sure they got some sort of deal somewhere -- and proceeded to go to this timeshare presentation the day of when they wanted to go to their beloved event. Well, they had to wait a while and by the time that the presenters got to them, well, it was the end of the day. The salespeople apologized, because hey, you know, it happens. Well, according to my mom, that just wasn't good enough for them, so my sister-in-law starts pitching a fit and throwing a tantrum and calling these timeshare salespeople liars and cheats. She wanted her damn tickets, and she made it pretty clear that she wasn't leaving without them. So, they called the cops. When the cops arrived, she was asked to leave quietly, and after another foot-stomping session (which I'm sure shook the rafters, the gal is the size of Shamoo the killer whale) she finally left. My brother didn't say a word.

My mother was concerned for two reasons. One, my sister-in-law is pregnant with what could be her first child. It is not safe, nor advisable to get that riled up during your pregnancy. It could cause all sorts of things to go wrong. Did she think of this at all? Well, no. She wanted her tickets, damn it! Such is the life of my liberal sibling and his wife. Two, should she had done one more rash thing, one of two things would have happened -- either she was going to get tazered and possibly lose her unborn child, or she would have simply been arrested and would have had to spend the evening (at least) in jail. Nobody on my side of the family (especially my brother) could have bailed her fat ass out, and that would mean that she would have spent her anniversary in jail. Man, had this only happened about six to eight weeks ago, my wife wouldn't be so smitten over this whole competition to have the first grandchild on my side of the family!

Between her story and my venting, I think this day has pretty well been shot to hell. Oh, well. Tomorrow is yet another day...