This post is written in conjunction with the Spin Cycle over at Sprite’s Keeper, the topic of which this week is relatives. Click here to see more of the most related posts on the internet this week.

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I come from a dramatic bunch. You might think I’m degrading myself or my family by saying so, but if you’ve come to accept—nay, embrace—the drama like I have, you understand that our drama-by-nature need not necessarily bear such negative connotations.

It’s like the manager at the first job I ever had once told me: any old girl can be boring and easygoing; it takes a woman with skills to drum up a good drama.

And if a flair for the dramatic takes skill…well…let’s just say the women in my family would take gold in the Drum Up Your Own Drama event of the Emotional Olympics, should such an occasion ever present itself to us. (Oh wise Olympic council, hear my call for justice. My voice shall not be silenced until there is at last an event at the Olympics that I might actually have a chance at winning.)

(See? Drama. Like I said.)

My aunt is getting her big toe amputated today. It’s sad, it’s awful, and we all feel really bad for her. Becoming an amputee is no small potatoes, to be sure.

But by the time the story trickled down the family grape vine, you would have thought she was losing her entire leg.

See, if losing one toe sounds awful, losing two sounds even worse. And nobody in my family can resist a good embellishment, myself included.

One time I embellished so much that my lips grew to twelve times their normal size from all the exercise.

You get my drift.

And if there’s one thing we all really love to dramatize, it’s bad news. We are bad news barracudas, the whole lot of us. Nothing is more thrilling than being the first to tell bad news. Like that time I hit a guy with my car? Some people might have been embarrassed to divulge the details of such a harrowing experience, but not me. I had no sooner stopped shaking than I was dialing my phone to tell everyone I knew. And once I’d exhausted my contact list, I sat straightaway at my computer and typed the tale for all the world to read on my blog. 12 hours later, I’d done all I could to spread the word of my misfortune. I don’t know if I can adequately express the high that comes from hearing the shocked exclamations of someone who hasn’t already heard the news. It’s addicting.

I don’t mean to minimalise my favourite aunt’s distress. Truly I don’t. It’s come at a horrible time for her, right before our family reunion which she was so looking forward to attending. Her presence there will be missed, inasmuch as she always brings the life of the party wherever she goes.

And I hear that learning to walk without one’s big toe is actually trickier than it sounds. I don’t envy her that task.

But I must admit I was so happy to hear that it was just one toe she was losing and not her entire foot like I heard first.

And I’m also glad she’s not dead like I heard next.

I guess you’d just have to know my family to understand.

And you? What’s your family’s specialty?

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