![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Hospitality: UR DOIN IT RONG
Jun. 17th, 2013 10:53 pmAs you may already know, O friends, I'm back home in Dublin. I have an amusing anecdote to relate to you all.
My grandmother, who is dying slowly, has been living in my younger aunt's house since her diagnosis, going on six months now with occasional hospitalisations. My mum and I have been visiting her there regularly. My aunt stands within the ranks of the comfortably middle class, with two houses (one of them rented out) and regular foreign holidays (i.e. more than one in any given twelve-month period), two resident daughters (both of whom are working), a kitchen filled with working appliances and no shortage in her fridge.
In all the time we've been visiting Gran, Aunt has never really offered us food even when eating herself - nor have we asked for it. So it came rather out of the blue on Saturday, just before she left the house, she said to us, "If you're ever hungry while you're here, you know..." she said.
"If you're ever hungry while you're here, you know, there's a café down the road past [X] supermarket."
That is so perfectly my aunt.
Do we have a lean and hungry look? I thought to myself. Have we ever asked for food you never offered?
It would never occur to her we might be broke: that my mother has been on sick leave for going on a year and my scholarship is not grandly large and has to cover a whole bunch of things, now. "If you're ever hungry while you're here, you know, there's a café!" (Or perhaps I am over-charitable in ascribing to indifference what could as well be malice.)
I am still laughing. Hospitality: YOU GIVE IT A BAD NAME. "If you're ever hungry while you're here!" For a moment I thought she might speak as I would, and say something along the lines of there's cold meat and yoghurts in the fridge and bread in the cupboard, help yourselves. But it was definitely not shocking to hear her speak otherwise. Entertaining! For it shall go down in the annals as an example of Hospitality: How Not To Do It. But not shocking.
There is a slightly more serious side now, of course. If she ever does offer food in future, we will be obliged to refuse. Having the depth of our unwelcome demonstrated means we must avoid incurring reciprocal obligations: there is no guest-friendship there.
But still, two days later, laughing. Is this not amusing?
My grandmother, who is dying slowly, has been living in my younger aunt's house since her diagnosis, going on six months now with occasional hospitalisations. My mum and I have been visiting her there regularly. My aunt stands within the ranks of the comfortably middle class, with two houses (one of them rented out) and regular foreign holidays (i.e. more than one in any given twelve-month period), two resident daughters (both of whom are working), a kitchen filled with working appliances and no shortage in her fridge.
In all the time we've been visiting Gran, Aunt has never really offered us food even when eating herself - nor have we asked for it. So it came rather out of the blue on Saturday, just before she left the house, she said to us, "If you're ever hungry while you're here, you know..." she said.
"If you're ever hungry while you're here, you know, there's a café down the road past [X] supermarket."
That is so perfectly my aunt.
Do we have a lean and hungry look? I thought to myself. Have we ever asked for food you never offered?
It would never occur to her we might be broke: that my mother has been on sick leave for going on a year and my scholarship is not grandly large and has to cover a whole bunch of things, now. "If you're ever hungry while you're here, you know, there's a café!" (Or perhaps I am over-charitable in ascribing to indifference what could as well be malice.)
I am still laughing. Hospitality: YOU GIVE IT A BAD NAME. "If you're ever hungry while you're here!" For a moment I thought she might speak as I would, and say something along the lines of there's cold meat and yoghurts in the fridge and bread in the cupboard, help yourselves. But it was definitely not shocking to hear her speak otherwise. Entertaining! For it shall go down in the annals as an example of Hospitality: How Not To Do It. But not shocking.
There is a slightly more serious side now, of course. If she ever does offer food in future, we will be obliged to refuse. Having the depth of our unwelcome demonstrated means we must avoid incurring reciprocal obligations: there is no guest-friendship there.
But still, two days later, laughing. Is this not amusing?
