Just Another Example of How There Are Different Kinds of Families

Moving straight from the title: I mean, there are even different kinds of relationships between different members of a family: for example, many of my aunts hate each other for different reasons, and I personally (amateur psychologist time) think my cousin has a narcissistic personality disorder because his own aunt, though a lovely woman herself, raised him to believe that whatever he wants to do is the right thing to do--literally, she has told me she did this, and he has certainly exhibited (in my observation, at least) the characteristics or made offhand comments to support my amateur diagnosis.

Anyway, none of my extended family is in contact very much with itself, from what I can tell--besides my obligatory-but-stressful biweekly calls to mi abuela, whom you may find yourself surprised to learn that, despite being la abuela, treats other people, including her son and other immediate family members, "quite villainously" (as I will choose to describe it), and so could probably benefit from a lesson in the importance of el respeto--except my adorable "Aunt Fluffy" (great aunt, technically, nicknamed for anonymity) a Catholic nun who served as, if I remember correctly, as the registrar for the University of Bethlehem in Palestine during the 1980's, and has campaigned vigorously for Palestinian rights ever since. Though I believe she has passed the age of 90 now and lives in a full-time care center, she nonetheless continues writing letters to the editor on the subject: yes mi querida tía abuela, thinks people read letters to the editor for local newspapers, but she's a woman of age and maturity, so let's all just let her keep doing what she's been doing.

Anyway, I learned today that "Aunt Fluffy," one of the few people in my family that seems to recognize it as a family, sent an email to the rest of my family to inform them of my upcoming birthday. With this sweet-hearted email later forwarded to me, I hit "reply," selected all the original recipients of the email, but removed "Aunt Fluffy" from the recipients of my reply. I then wrote my extended family the following email:

Hello everyone! [Redacted for anonymity.] Thank you so much, "Aunt Fluffy," for remembering my birthday, and for passing the word along to the family! "Aunt Fluffy," you have all my [contact] information [you provided in your original email] correct (and you can add "[redacted for anonymity]" as a business [email] address), and just to help you out, my degree will read, "[redacted for anonymity]." Kind of a mouthful, I know. :)

Anyhow! On to the "business" of this email: I'm pleased to tell you that, since about September of last year, I have been planning to move back to Los Angeles after completing my degree, due to a high local demand for people with the kind of skills associated with my degree, my preexisting social network there, and my calculations that the high pay-scale for [profession redacted for anonymity] can accommodate the cost of living in Los Angeles.

That being said, and as you can imagine, I don't really need any more physical items to either donate or move across the country three months after receiving them as gifts. So, if you plan on giving me a birthday gift--and please know that you're under no obligation to do so, as I have a rather "Jehovah's Witness" kind of attitude toward birthdays and holidays in general--I would appreciate it if you relieved yourself of any pressure to find some gift that "really fits [this writer]" or anything like that, and simply gave me some small-value securities, contracts on market-traded commodities, options, futures, cryptocurrencies [if you're just one of the smart members of the family who both understands economics and is also brave enough to hold Bitcoin] {although that appears in brackets, it did appear in the email in precisely those words}, land rights, check, cash, money order, PayPal transfer, or (as the sole physical asset I can imagine having a use for at the moment) a van large enough I can live in it, I would greatly appreciate any of those.

In lieu of such, however, please instead donate to the World Wildlife Fund. Here is a link to the donation page made for this via my Facebook account: [Redacted for anonymity]

If for whatever reason you don't care about wildlife, I would suggest donating to a charity for repairing children's cleft palates.

[Talk to you soon, and] with my best wishes for your health, happiness, and safety,

[Writer]

So, that's the style I've developed for dealing with my kind of family.