Giant Dwarf vs Poland, Part I: How It All Began

Preface:

My family worships birthdays.  We fall lock step under my mother's command and we all try to celebrate our birthdays as a family.  As we have gotten older, we don't celebrate every birthday together (however, my parents do visit each of us on our birthdays) but milestone birthdays merit required family attendance.  Until almost a decade ago, this was easier to do, with none of us married and our group being somewhat manageable in size.  Now, through marriage and procreation, we have nearly doubled our group size so this does get to be hairy at times.  Suffice it to say, we have found myriad ways to stay together in one place, if only for a few days.

So here's how this all begins:

My mother's and my birthdays are 4 days apart and my mother is almost exactly 25 years older than I am.  This means our milestone birthdays happen together, often.  And so, a couple of years ago, I get a call from my brother, the Golden Child, with his grand plan for our double-milestone birthday.  It went something like this:

Golden Child:  "Okay, so here's what I think we should do:  you find a place where you'd like to celebrate your birthday, find an airbandb and we'll all stay there and then we'll all fly out together to Philadelphia, so Mom can celebrate her birthday there.

Giant Dwarf:  (thinking to myself how fucking miserable and cold it is in Philly at that time of year)  "Are you sure Mom wants do that?"

Golden Child:  "Yeah, she'll love it!  We can take her to the Mummer's Parade too!"

Giant Dwarf:  "Dude, it's cold there.  And the Mummer's Parade is kind of racist.  Are you sure everyone is going to be okay with this?" (Here I am fervently hoping my sister-in-law has run interference on this terrible idea.)

Golden Child:  "Nah, everyone's on board.  Let me know where you are thinking of celebrating your birthday.....maybe we can stay at that place in the Palisades where we stayed during your wedding."  (Yeesh, who made HIM the boss of me?...this causes me to think about Hawai'i as a birthday destination.)

Great.  Now we have to plan some elaborate double trip that I'm not even sure I want to do.  I know these birthdays are big deals for me and my mom, but now I'm feeling pressured.

Fast-forward to:

Milestone Birthdays: T minus 8 months

We're all together in Phoenix, sitting around a table waiting for my parents to arrive.  The Golden Child makes this announcement:  "Okay, we're going to scrap the Philly idea for Mom's birthday."

I am overjoyed.  I love Philly, but not in the dead of winter, when most of the people we know there are in Florida or the Caribbean.

Golden Child:  "We're going to Poland instead.  Mom really wants to go to Poland and trace our roots."

ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME?  Can we put the Philly idea back on the table?

Giant Dwarf:  "So, wait.....you'd rather go to Poland in December?"

Golden Child:  "Of course not.  It'll probably be in the summer, when we can all get time off."

Giant Dwarf:  "I remember Mommom saying that we should never set foot in Poland.  Are you sure Mom really wants to go?"

(I'd like to add here that our youngest brother, The Prince, has not expressed any opinion.  And he is the only one at the table who has actually been to Poland before.)

Golden Child:  "Yeah, Mom wants to go.  She'll love this trip."

Now, since The Prince is saying nothing, I can't say anything because anything I say will be used against me in any family squabble in the future so I keep my mouth shut and hope that the Golden Child is experiencing a complete lapse in sanity and will come to his senses as soon as possible.

I was wrong.

At my mom's birthday party, we present her with a giant airline ticket to Poland.  She is beside herself with joy, actually weeping, which is a total rarity in my family.

We're fucking going to Poland.