Dear Blake,
I have an ongoing dilemma with my sister. She often plans vacations for us to take together and springs them on me out of the blue. She then pressures me to say yes and becomes impatient when I tell her I need time to think about it.
The thing is, she isn’t a great travel companion and I don’t enjoy going on vacation with her. I have taken trips with her before. She is finicky and picky, and she often expects me to front the money for expenses. I have limited vacation time, and I’d rather spend it with my significant other and friends who are better travel buddies.
I can’t be honest about this with her because she is extremely sensitive and would take it poorly. On the other hand, I feel guilty dodging all her requests for vacations. She doesn’t have close friends because her attitude tends to repel others. I want to do the right thing, but I don’t want to feel used or guilted. How would you handle this?
Signed, Clara
From St. Paul, Minnesota
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Dear Clara,
Your sister comes to me as being selfish and cheap. Fortunately for you, I think I know how to deal with that freeloading loser that happens to be your sibling. Here is my advice. Take her to the annual balloon festival in New Mexico. Once you two are about a 1000 feet above the ground, pull out a sawed off shotgun and blast the balloon. Hopefully your sister won’t notice that you boarded the balloon wearing a parachute. Or, take her to Niagara Falls, and give her a very aggressive pat on the back, while she’s leaning over near the edge of a cliff. If you can talk fast, you can apologize to her before she hits the water. Or this idea. Go camping in a remote South America jungle where primitive cannibal tribes live. And contact them ahead of time informing them that you are dropping off “lunch”. Lastly, if you want something really simple, then do this. The next vacation she decides the two of you should go on, you take care of all the arrangements. But tell her you won’t book anything until she gives you her half, but secretly give her an amount that pays for your half too. You can justify this by telling yourself, this is your discounted rate for hanging out with insensitive morons. I hope this helps.
Blake