Oh, I know it’s tacky to discuss money. Shut up.
But I MEAN, this “Estate” business just keeps getting stranger and stranger. Stranger, of course being the operative word. In case you are just joining our programming:
1) Gary’s Uncle Stranger and Aunt Whoozits died recently and romantically and childlessly one right after another.
2) Uncle “Huh?Who?” died first, followed by Aunt “I think Dad has Another Sister, Maybe.”
3) Me: “Huh? Your Aunt left your dad how much money?”
4) Gary’s dad makes plans to avoid massive tax penalties by dumping some cash immediately on his kids.
It’s all so, so Bronte. I mean, who dies with money in this day and age? Why weren’t these people languishing in a fund-sucking Nursing Home? And, when Ken gets money will he still buy the hot dogs that turn the water pink when you boil them? Will money change him?
As it turns out, we may never know. It appears Uncle Referred-to-by-the-wrong-name-all last-Sunday had a first marriage, and those kids are saying, “Ken who? Who is this guy? My dad’s second wife had a brother? And what is he doing with Dad’s money?” (I am sure they don’t call it an Estate. I imagine they are to the manor born, while Gary and I are the type of people who “buy their silver.” Whereas Ken and Wilma are the type of people who buy their gold-plate from K-Mart. )
At any rate, they are contesting the will. Understandable. They feel their father’s will should be the one honored, since, you know, it mentions them, and it wasn’t really their fault he died first.
This is actually good, because it puts the whole Estate thing back into the realm of Eternal Youth and Free-Five Sex fantasies. Gary was getting himself all worked up about paying off his Visa card before this horrible, horrible money gets here, because otherwise he’ll never be able to say “I paid off all my debts without any help from anyone.” (I mean, other than me. I’m sure he meant to say that.)
Then I get this phone call from Gary.
“Hey, Uncle … Uncle… you know, that guy who died? His will just came in the mail!” Gary chirped. And guess what?
Gary is mentioned specifically in Uncle Not-my-blood-relative-I don’t even-know-his-name’s Last Will and Testament. Not Gary’s dad. Gary. Well, Gary and his sisters, but evidently Uncle WhatWasYourNameAgainPlease mentioned his wife as the inheritor of everything, and if his wife is dead, it’s all divided up fairly evenly between his kids and his wife’s nieces and nephews, including Gary.
It makes it a little hard to sleep knowing that Gary’s cousins-in-law are out there fantasizing his death by carbon monoxide poisoning. Oh, and maybe his Dad too, I don’t know. All I know is I am married to one lucky bastard.
9 responses to “In Which I Am Tacky”
Re: the silver. Someone had to buy the stuff in the first place. You don’t just find a 25 piece silver tea service lying on the ground. Unless you’re in London during the Blitz.I hate that kind of snobism, the “PLU”/”She isn’t one of us, of course, and never will be” crap.
Ah, yes… let the whining begin. Get ready for lots of very jealous people to think that just ’cause YOU got some, THEY get some. It’s nuts.
Becs – actually, we buy our silver-plate. And for myself, I LOVE snobbism! Because as a very old-money grand lady explained to me once, “No matter how much money you have, never try to act like someone other than how you were born.” She felt she could include anyone into her circle who wasn’t fake. She would like the Unsinkable Molly Brown, she would like Britney Spears, but posers were posers non grata in her book. It was if she acknowledged our class differences and approved of my lower class at the same time. She was a pro-diversity snob.
And Becs – I figured out “PLU” (People Like Us) in just under half a day.
Sue – We would have to actually GET some, which may very well not happen. If it happens: knowing Gary, since he got some, everyone will get some, because he loves spreading out the cash and stimulating the economy.
Q: Completely agree with grand lady. Of course, just think how many books wouldn’t have been written if some people didn’t get all goofy about that. Dominick Dunne wouldn’t have had a career at all. Ditto Stephen Birmingham. Maybe even Tom Wolfe?
PS – I used to buy my silver at yard sales and flea markets. It’s sitting in the basement now. If you want it, it’s yours.
“the sort of people who buy their silver”
Funny story about that. My grandmother named her youngest son executor (he’s a lawyer), and he told my grandmother she couldn’t give her stuff away while she was alive. He also got her to sign a codacil (sp?) keeping my mom (co-executor) from co-executing, when my grandmother was sick and dying, using my sweet pushover aunt (who is particularly a pushover to technocrats like lawyers) as the witness). He didn’t tell anyone this until my grandmother had died. But my grandmother was a wonderfully and terribly manipulative and sneaky sort; she left the silver tea service to me “to hemp with my medical expenses.” The tea service was the possession most coveted by my uncle and his late wife. I have one of those chronic diseases, and so my uncle couldn’t object to it going to pay for my medical expenses. My bills are getting paid, don’t worry, but I am keeping that tea service until I’m dead. I might bury it in the ground with me. She helped raise me. I was (really) her favorite grandchild. I was, of course, unaware of this until one of my mom’s brothers pointed it out to me, when my grandmother was ill. In my book, anyone who (essentially) steals from his sick, elderly mother by making her sign a codacil and pretending it’s just some paperwork, and worse, tells her she can’t give her stuff away while she’s alive, deserves to see me using that tea service. (I actually enjoy and drink tea, too.) So that’s my silver. Whence the silver utensils? Hehe. Both my partner’s and my families are so ‘old money’ (actually my granny was ‘the sort of people who bought their silver,’ but anyway) that by the time we inherited (or were told we would inherit) silverware, it had been lost! 🙂
Lila (Lila! L-i-l-a, Lila. Welcome, Lila) – I hate to say it, but I’ve seen that type of behavior from lawyers who aren’t even part of the family. Ones who would say, “Give me the tea service, I’ll make sure it gets to the right person.” And I especially like that you’re using it.