Power of Attorney

I've been telling MyFella that I wanted his p.o.a. I am mostly kidding, we just are not yet in that stage of a relationship. We don't live together and haven't mingled finances. We're really just boyfriends.

The joke first came up after I went to a funeral and saw the "beautiful flowers" that his cousin made . . . . everywhere . . . like a w-m silk flower explosion in the country cemetery. After that, I told him matter of factly that I had to have power of attorney over his after-death business because, quite frankly, I just couldn't allow that crap anywhere near his funeral.

I've reiterated it jokingly several times, especially if we're in any way reminded of w-m silk flowers, purple silk flowers, or the one time we were driving through the country and wound up near another cemetery that clearly had been visited upon by the w-m silk flower fairy in all her purple majesty. Ugh!

Today I experienced just another reason to demand multiple levels of p.o.a. Let me first admit that I don't have a huge family. Never did. Nuclear family of four plus a dog, so with an in-law and nephews it's still just 7 people. I love extended family and know we can call upon them, but they're someone you have to go see, or someone who makes plans to come see you. They're not just there, down the street, around the corner, in restauants when you go out, etc.

Which is very different from the way he grew up. He is one of 8 siblings. His father is one of six siblings, most of whom still live within a 30 minute distance. So when his father went in this morning to have a stint surgery to eliminate blockage, an entire family showed up. All over in one corner of the waiting room.

I had taken the day off to surprise MyFella and offer support to distract Jamie in case he got upset at the hospital. Hospitals sometimes bother him, and I have the PTO time, and the hospital is only 80 miles away, all interstate. I barely got my Diet Coke finished before I pulled up. And walked into that nonsense of retirees and off spring alike all huddled up.

I've decided that, for the old people, it was probably due to being a retiree. They've got nothing better to do, this is an event and they can justify it in their minds by "being there" for the wife. Yeah, right. Even though the surgery is as common place as a a pedicure these days, I get that the man is in his 70's and every surgery has it's risks. But come on, nobody needs that many kin for support. I can even understand all the off spring (siblings such as MyFella). It is, after all, their dad. But the sheer volume of people I found absolutely ridiculous. If you need a table of 12 at Chilli's for lunch, and 5 or 6 people stayed behind at the hospital, then that's too many people.

But anyway, right off the bat, I told MyFella that I would be getting the "in the hospital" power of attorney in addition to the "you're dead" power of attorney, because, quite frankly, I'm shoo'ing them all on home. They're not all sitting up there and annoying me if I'm already worrying about him.

Second, I have found that MyFella's dislike for one uncle/aunt have rubbed off on me and I dislike them. Her in her Pentecostal bun and his "poor me walking cane" I just don't care to put up with 'em. I have no idea who managed to hide their cell phone number and call this aunt well over two dozen times, but I could kick them in their shins. And since this old uncle is a confirmed adulterer, having ruined his first marriage for an affair with a girl half his age, I thought his joke "It's my girlfriend calling" to be really tasteless. I think the adultery is at the heart of MyFella's dislike for him. He's told me clearly that the first wife is his aunt, not this lady, and the young lady with whom he had the affair was someone MyFella knew socially and is closer to our age. But not my family and not my problem.

But it is further reason for me to tell MyFella that, when we advance our relationship, he'd just be ready to sign the papers. Because in a hospital environment, I will shoosh them up and send them all out the door. All those extra ones anyway. Ugh.

Now, on a funny note, and just my luck to miss the good part, MyFella and that same uncle (just one of several there today), got into it. They get into it all the time. Lots of little one-liner snippets back and forth at each other. MyFella threatens to have the water meter pulled, the uncle threatens to call the city council about something, blah blah blah blah blah. (MyFella thinks the uncle got away without some building permits by using MyFella's name, at least in conversation and references to 'his nephew' so city related stuff really gets his nerve.) Then the uncle switched to suggesting that meter readers ride bikes instead of drive trucks. That's how it was when I walked out to take a call, much to my relief.

Upon my return, the entire patio was vacated, MyFella was steaming mad, two of MyFella's brothers were laughing in the hallway, and apparently the old uncle had thrown down the "I fought in a war" card which caused MyFella to call him a "wore out." I think what MyFella really wanted to call him was an old adulterer, but as much as he dislikes the current wife, she had not done anything overtly ugly to him so he could not throw it out with her sitting right there. The comment, laughed the younger generation, caused the old uncle to have a flare up of Post Traumatic Stress and went running to the other waiting room to tell all the older relatives how mean MyFella is to him.

And somehow I missed all that while on the cell phone.

I've got to get those power of attorney papers written up.