April fools all of us

[dreadedcandiru2]

As you know, I tend to think that the Elly Patterson of 2013 is sitting at the kitchen table trading stories with Connie about the children that grew up to disappoint them. While Connie is moaning that having to tolerate Lawrence's choice to be gay gets in the way of her showing off grandbabies to a family that never is going to care about her no matter what she does, Elly is groaning about how that spoiled, spiteful, selfish princess is chasing after the same sort of stupid dream that made Phil a nomad who wouldn't obey his sister like he was clearly meant to. Both women console one another with self-aggrandizing self-pity about how the only thing that softens the blow is that they cannot expect better. The reason for this is hinted at by the title I used.

As you may or may not know, the title of this entry is a direct quotation from one of the badly animated specials that appeared in the late 1990s called A Storm In April. The first half of the cartoon revolved around Elly's foolhardy and thoughtless decision to take April to work with her "to see what Mommy does for a living" as well as to make her soon-to-be former coworkers into babysitters. As expected, Elly made the Triangle-Mouthed Gasp And Goggle-Eyed Frown Of Existential Terror™ because April refused to admit that good little children are supposed to sit quietly exactly where Mommy plops them down. They aren't supposed to want to move or talk or think so behaving like something that isn't a walking doll is done because they're bad children who hate Mommies and want them to suffer.

Anyways, they get to talking about the sinister comic opera that was her birth at home. Towards the end, someone points out that she was born on April Fool's Day and the Delicate Genius lessens what it means to be human by spouting the ridiculous non sequitur I'm using as a title so we can all be reminded that April's presence ruined everyone's lives forever. From the second the gynecologist suggested that Elly might be pregnant to the second that Liz bellowed in rage because the Picky-Face commented on how her contribution to planning her own wedding was staring out the window like a robot, April has been depicted as a spanner in everyone's works.

This is a ridiculous conceit for the characters to have because they were screwed every which way long before the Martian picky-face princess creature ever forgot to check her expiration date. Elly might whine and growl about being being tied down and never having a career all day and all night but any objective look at her tells us that her bellowing and mewling is in vain. She doesn't have the brains, stamina or guts to be anything other than a posturing wannabe sponging off of the hard work of other people so blaming a child for her own failures is a rather nasty exercise in pleading the question via a fall guy. The other Pattersons vary only in degree, not in kind. John would be a dissatisfied wreck hiding from his family in his shed had April never been born, Mike was always going to be a doofus churning out crap novels because his upbringing ripped the guts out of him, Liz's love life would have been in a constant stall because not having April around wouldn't magically cure her of the passivity and obliviousness that Elly's negligence reinforced and Deanna still a pale copy of Elly.

The maddest and most maddening thing of all is that there actually is a parasite within the Patterson family who actually did destroy everyone else's lives by the simple act of being born. Said monstrosity used to wear her hair in the same ponytail she had when she was pretending to be a hippie chick only to adopt an ugly, unflattering bun when she started pretending to be a sensible, mature woman. This menace to everyone's happiness also has the tendency to stand around jabbing her finger in the air and bellowing like a God-damned lunatic when slighted.

Comments

[elizcath.livejournal.com]

I hate to think of how miserable Grandpa Jim would have been if April had never been born. She was the only one of his grandchildren who had any kind of relationship with him.

[dreadedcandiru2.livejournal.com]

And she got zero credit for it too. It bothers me a lot how Liz was the one to show up after Stroke Number Two because she simply doesn't care about the poor fellow.