About a month ago, I signed up a bunch of people in my family to geni.com. The family twigs have exploded somewhat, but naturally, someone had to fuck it up. Surprisingly, that person was my Aunt Carol, a schoolteacher in Wellington.

Clearly she does not “get” the purpose of Geni. This morning, she wrote me this message:

Dear Matthew,

I am contacting you about this profile: http://www.geni.com/people/Sheree-Gausel/6000000008700465219 She is not part of my family tree. Ross and Jo are as they are your parent and step parent. sheree is not related to our family in anyway. I would prefer it if she set up her own and included Glenn.

Sincerely,
Carol

To which I shot back:

Mathew Carley ยป Carol Pedersen:

Carol, With all due respect, under New Zealand common law, Sheree is part of the family, whether we like it or not. By your same logic, I should not include my partner or the father of Nikki’s child.

I believe that you are just picking on Sheree for no apparent reason, but if I were to remove or otherwise separate Sheree, I would have to remove and separate several other relationships, yet you’ve raised no issue with them.

The purpose of Geni is to bring people together, not to create or maintain a rift. I don’t really care whatever problems remain between you and my father, but as far as I’m concerned life is too short, and both of you should stop being petty and just forgive each other.

In short, no changes will be made and I’ll be reversing all of yours.

To which she replied:

Please remove the entire pedersen family from the Carley pedersen tree.

and since I get pretty sick of bullshit pretty quickly (one might suggest I’m allergic to it):

Face the facts – Glenn is still your brother. Stop being so fucking petty and if you wish to be removed from the family tree then be my guest and unsubscribe from this website.

I don’t have time for people who hold grudges. It’s times like this that I remember why I left New Zealand and why I hate everyone in it.

And what timing you have – I will be there on the 11th, and I have to visit Wellington. But as far as I’m concerned, you’re missing out, not me.

Go ahead and hold your grudge against Dad and co, it is not my problem, nor do I actually give a flying toss what you or anyone else thinks, and that is why I’m better than you.

to which I added…

And while I’m at it, I hope you don’t plan to be so childish at my wedding. Especially on that day I will not be tolerating *any* bullshit.

Offensive? Probably. I’ve been a bit like that this past week or so. Let’s see where she takes it from here.