What I Learned On My Christmas Vacation OR An Insider’s Guide to Pushing the Morton Family Buttons

This year, Christmas vacation afforded the Morton family the rare and much-needed opportunity to actually be present in the same room—all of us together—for more than 30 minutes at a time.  Truth be told, I had forgotten what the Bureaucrat’s face looked like, having only been able to view the top of his head as he ate his dinner or leaned over his law books for the past several months.  Turns out the children resemble him as much as they do me…go figure.

Of course, our children resemble us in much more than just physical features (the Dictator has my eyes, the Anarchist has his forehead); our children also have inherited a fascinating mix of our personality traits, both good and not-so-good, so that the combination of personality traits clashing and sometimes exploding in the Morton household this Christmas was nothing short of a fascinating spectacle.  We had to reacquaint ourselves with each other, with our various personality quirks and compulsions, and learn how to live with one another again.  In the process, we fast discovered how best to torment one another, deciding by trial and error exactly which buttons to push to manipulate, annoy, retaliate, or destroy, depending upon our needs. 

The following is a guide to pushing our buttons, should you ever need to seek vengeance against any of us.  Use it wisely.

The Bureaucrat:

• Leave a mostly empty mug of coffee wherever you go.  When you need a refill, get a new mug and leave it somewhere different.  See how long it takes to grow mold on the mugs.  Insist that the house’s growing mug collection is part of its charm.

• Eat graham crackers on the couch.  When graham crackers are halfway finished, sit on them.  Let crumbs collect over time for maximum effect.

• Wait until the Bureaucrat is at a lengthy mid-sentence pause (this should be easy, as they are frequent).  Sigh heavily and urge him to “hurry up.”  Snap your fingers impatiently in his face while doing this to maximize his rage.

• Become convinced you are dying of your head cold.  Attempt to convince the Bureaucrat you are dying of your head cold.  He will LOVE this.

Dictator:

 

• Touch anything that might arguably belong to her.

• Insist that skirts and cloth shoes are not always practical clothing options.  Suggest pants and boots, instead.

• Make dinner.  Place her sister’s cup at her place at the table.  Suggest that violent rage might possibly be an unwarranted response to the aforementioned cup-mix-up.

• Run out of blackberries or strawberries.  Offer apples, pears, oranges, peppers, pineapples, carrots or blueberries instead.  Suggest that violent rage might possibly be an unwarranted response to the aforementioned produce "shortage."

Anarchist:

 

• Sit on the spot on the couch nearest the television.  Refuse to move.

• Use the phrase, “use the potty.”

• Wait until she has consumed a coin.  Remove the remaining stash of coins to a safe, undisclosed location.

• Suggest that she is too small to do anything.

Me:

 

• Discuss at great length, and in extremely minute detail, your plans for some part of some specific activity for the day.  Be sure to obsessively analyze the various ways in which the mundane task (for example, doing the laundry, washing the dishes, packing your Littlest Pet Shop Friends) might be carried out.  Ask constantly for reassurance that your decided way of carrying out said task is the most reasonable.  Repeat regularly for maximum effect.

• Be excessively compliant until two minutes before we have to leave to go somewhere important.  Upon my urgings to hurry, remove your shoes, coat and hat.  Run off to another level of the house to “get something.”  Forget you are supposed to be leaving.  Weep because someone touched your possessions.  Insist that I help you find something.  Start dancing in front of a mirror.  Cry because I’m angry.  Become angry with me because we’re late.

• Put the dishes away, but neglect to put them in rainbow order. 

• Leap out from a dark and secret place and sink your fangs into my calf.  Go on, try it.  I dare you.

and, lest we forget, the Fat Assassin: 

• Pass the upstairs linen closet (in which the cat treats reside).  Ignore repeated, entitled meowing for cat treats.  Neglect to give out cat treats.

• Wrap Christmas gifts.  Refuse to let the Fat Assassin luxuriate all over the overpriced designer wrapping paper.  Kick the Fat Assassin out of the room. 

• Attempt to sort the dirty laundry mountain in the closet upon which the Fat Assassin has made her cozy bed.

• Withhold your fleshy calves for any reason.

just my type

Every now and then, I find it amusing to indulge in a little personality typing.  I hadn't run my family through the Myers-Briggs in a while, so I thought I'd take the personality test for them and see what the results were:

This is how a bureaucrat dances

The Bureaucrat: ESTJ (supervisor)

So, my husband is the complete opposite of me.  We create balance for each other, I guess. He likes order, orthodoxy, rules, responsibility, and all other sorts of bureaucrat-y type things.  Not surprisingly, several sites listed a whole lotta presidents as ESTJs, including George Washington and Dub-ya.  Also present in this clan of bureaucrats: Judge Judy, Sandra Day O'Connor, the Reverend Billy Graham, and Dan Rather (I do so like the way that young man reads the news).

The Dictator strikes a world domination pose.

The Dictator: INTJ (mastermind)

Oh, Dictator, you are such a dictator!  Gifted, opportunistic, perfectionistic and impassive.  Guess who's on the list of fellow INTJs?  Donald Rumsfeld (world domination, anyone?), Rudy Giuliani, Hillary Clinton, Jane Austen's Mr. Darcy, Jane Austen herself, a whole slew of presidents, and last, but certainly not least, Hannibal Lecter (as in, I'm going to eat you with fava beans and a nice Chianti).  Fantastic!

Our little party girl.

The Anarchist: ESFP (performer)

The Anarchist is our social party girl who loves to talk.  How very ESFP of her!  She shares this type with Bob Hope, Arsenio Hall, my own personal childhood hero Mary Lou Retton, Kathy Lee Gifford, and best of all, Tim the Toolman Taylor.  Note the lack of presidents.

She would totally eat your face, given the opportunity.

The Fat Assassin: INTJ (mastermind)

I'm fairly certain our family pet shares a personality type with my eldest daughter...and Hannibal Lecter.

See how much I look like a squishy alien?

and Me:  INFP (healer)

Of course, I get the childlike, fluffy, squishy personality type.  I would be disgusted with myself, but at least I get some hardcore ethical perfectionism thrown into the mix, just to give me a little personality street cred.  And I'm in good company: Homer, Virgil, the Virgin Mary, Annie Dillard (personal adulthood hero), Shakespeare, a couple of prominent saints, and E.T....yeah, the extraterrestrial.  Sounds about right.



And I'm infinitely curious about everyone else in the universe, too.  If you know your type, leave it in the comments...just for fun.

meet the fat assassin

It turns out that I neglected to introduce you to a member of the Morton family. She was highly offended and reminded me, by way of a flesh wound, that she will not be ignored. So it is with my sincerest apologies that I introduce you to the Fat Assassin.


By all laws of physics, the Fat Assassin should be nowhere near as agile and stealthy as she is, but we all have the calf scars and bloody wounds to prove that she is, in fact, agile and stealthy. Deprived of her "mama parts" and claws before we ever met her, the Fat Assassin carries a grudge of epic proportions, which she takes out on those who have the great misfortune of existing in her general vicinity. While she is (rarely) cuddly, she should be considered armed (albeit, not clawed) and extremely dangerous.

Current "reminder" flesh wound:

meet the family

the bureaucrat:



He's careful, methodical, detail-oriented, rules-focused and endlessly inefficient. He's also the voice of reason, the planner and the one person that keeps the family from flying off into a thousand hapless directions at once. Kind and intelligent, but not known for his speed.













the dictator:

Formerly known as "the bitty dictator," she dominates the family with precision and intensity, and her motto, "Never let the get them upper hand." The dictator controls every aspect of her environment using charisma, subtle manipulation and a vast vocabulary, as well as deadly force, if necessary. She is also sweet, articulate, funny, intelligent and profound. But don't tell her that...because she knows already. She knows everything already.





the anarchist:

Nothing makes this one happier than freedom. Maybe it comes from being hooked up to oxygen for the first several months of her life. Maybe it comes from being the second child (we were always big believers in birth order psychology). Or maybe she was just born to wreak joyful havoc on the world. Whether she's running into the street, flashing total strangers, pulling hair, or screaming bloody murder, at least she's happy while she's breaking all the rules.







and me:

I don't have a political title, because as far as political philosophies go I'm the rough equivalent of a Canadian citizen or something boring and equally non-title-worthy. Besides, "and me" just has a ring to it that no political title can quite duplicate. I'm a neurotic, scattered, mildly amusing (when I want to be) domestic anti-goddess who speaks in hyphenated, overly parenthetical sentences and writes in a similar fashion. I desperately try to maintain some level of control over my children, but am mostly glad to hold it--barely--together from day to day.