iExpect, youExpect, weExpect ...

There are at least three 'group mentalities' in my family. The first one, headed by my parents, claims that it's "traditional". The second one, headed by a cousin who we shall call Cuz also claims to be traditional. The third faction is an anarchy. It is headed by everybody who's younger than 50 yrs old. I'm a member and I have been told that we're 'non-traditional'.

Cuz is the master elusive qualities like meqeyayem, hod mebas, menafeq and qir mesegnet. My parents specialize in qir mesegnet and menafeq ... less so on meqeyayem and hod mebas. By my parents are experts on non-communication. They strive for non-communications.

Case point: one of my siblings just had a baby. Cuz somehow didn't find out that the wifey was preggers until a week or so before the delivery date. Cuz says "akaki zeraf! Why wasn't I told?" Now Cuz has gone into a self-prescribed state of seclusion. The sibling in question swears that he shared the news with him .Current theory about the miscommunication that is being floated by my parents is that the aforementioned sibling told Cuz that wifey was 'expecting', in English, and that the message was lost in translation with Cuz wondeirng, "mindin yihon yemitiTebiqew?" This is no joke.

So now with this damage done, some meqeyem was thrown in some qiyame way, etc, etc. My parents, like all sane people, place the blame on the sibling with the new baby. "Why does he have to tell people, including us, that he is expecting? Yemayasfelig zena!" my father explains. That's setting up people for sadness.

What?

"He should never have told us either", my father explains.

"So you only want to hear after the baby pops out?"

"Yes, yeqerew were new ... god forbid if something goes wrong it will just make people worry."

"But I'd rather know what's going on through poeple's lives so that, for example, I don't ask them when they plan to have a baby in casual conversation and hurt them. "

My father protests that he never asks people about having children.

So I pick the "When are you getting married?" question that he has asked in the past, "What if I had a boyfriend and he died. You'll still be asking me why I am not getting married because you've no idea what's going on in my life and you don't want to know."

At this point I hear my father yelling to my mom, "Hey, don't you want the phone back?"

She tells him no, or something, because he's back, changing the subject. I start laughing.

"So you're stuck with this conversation."

"Yes, it's not very fruitful is it?"

No. A few min later I set him free by demanding to talk to my mom. While talking to my mom, my phone card craps out. As was instructed by my mother ("Dimtsshin semtenal, lela ayasfeligim?"), I don't call back.

Relieved but still agitated, I call a friend to rant. She laughs and asks, "Wait, you called your dad on Father's Day to yell at him?".

Today is Father's Day?

Oh.