Talk about rude

When B was on a scholarship at the London School of Economics in 1964, he met another Commonwealth student, with whom he has kept in sporadic contact over the years.  Every now and then, this guy gets in touch and calls, or sends some piece of information or article, the wisdom of which he thinks B cannot live without.  This is when B will call this guy and chat. 

Of course, this acquaintance has B's reliance on the former's musings wrong, but B, being the gentleman he always is, takes the call or calls back and they have a throw-back chat about the glory days at London House back in the day and how Canada is, or is not, progressing.

Problem is, this guy comes with a wife with whom I have been forced to socialize over the years against my instincts.  A stereotypical snob, she has sorely tested my verbal restraint, but I have been unfailingly polite and have feigned interest in all her banal tales.  I am an adoptee, raised by marvelous genteel parents in upper-middle-class Ottawa, but genetically, I remain a relatively tough, Irish, Kingston townie, so this woman's mid-Atlantic accent and her snobism grates; so, by the way, does her incessant name-dropping.

Over the years, we have hosted this couple at The Royal Ottawa Golf Club, The Gatineau Fish and Game Club and The Ranchmen's Club -- at considerable cost, I might mention.  Were we ever feted in return?  Maybe once.  Inexpensively.  

Anyway, she used to include us in the mailing list for her hallowed "Christmas Letter" list -- that is, until I blogged about the pomposity of it.  (See 'The Dreaded Christmas Letter', Dec. 22, 2012, and 'The Hideous Christmas Letter', Dec. 21, 2015)   After these delights, she neither mentioned my blog -- nor ever spoke -- to us again.  But I am sure she still reads them.  Her husband, the old acquaintance of B, seems unaware of it all and continues to take advantage of B's brilliance in all things economic.  As a scholarship alumnus of 'The London School of Economics', he has a clue or two about the mess in which Canada finds itself under the fiscal and monetary blunderings of Trudeau, Freeland and Macklem.

The other day, during one of their conversations, his wife -- to assert her dominance -- broke into the call to tell her husband he had an appointment with a therapist.  Really?!  Who does that?!  "Michael, your therapist is coming on Friday," she yelled into the phone as they were debating the incompetent Macklem.  As I said, she does things like this to make sure everyone knows who runs the show, but to me such an interruption is just plain rude.

However, I am not surprised.