Extortion In The Family

There are those among us who feel they can have access to anything or take any possession they please from someone because no one ever told them it is wrong. Or because they have a sense of entitlement. In my family there are a few people who believe the world is their oyster simply for the taking. They will try to disguise it under kleptomania, but at the end of the day it is pillaging.

This sense of entitlement goes for other people’s things as well as husbands, wives, boyfriends and girlfriends.

Every family has their drama and odd individuals, so I am told. But when it comes to being ruthless there are certain members in my family, who have no boundaries. They will stop at nothing to conquer and divide what their so called “loving family” members have worked for. There are just some people who have an insatiable appetite for money and they can never seem to have enough even if the brinks truck is backed up on their front lawn.

For instance, a certain family member has an affinity to jewelry. Over the years she has amassed a collection that would have probably been enviable by Elizabeth Taylor. I have cousins who sit and salivate over her jewelry, waiting for the right opportunity to relieve her of them. Little by little, her collection began dwindling and when she questioned their disappearance, the culprits began chanting, ” Senility! Dementia! and Alzheimers!”

We all have moments when we misplace objects and sometimes they are close in proximity, but we just aren’t able to decipher the exact location. But, eventually, the items show up and we are relieved. Why? Because it is proof we are not losing our marbles. These family members are hell bent on making this woman look as if she is ready for the funny farm. They have her searching high and low for her jewels when they know, they are the ones who have taken them to further increase their wealth.

The whole matter is just unconscionable. Nevertheless, everyone looks the other way while these dastardly deeds are going on, waiting for me to do something outrageous so the critics can be distracted from the matter at hand. I don’t like to criticize others, but I know as a fact the family member who is enduring such heinous acts is quite generous at loaning her jewelry within the family. So I know if she were asked nicely it would not be a problem.

However, the power of bad company gets into my other relatives’ minds and wreak havoc. They feel if people in the family do not have children, then their spoils belong to them. God forbid if they are not overtly generous to their child or children, the act of conquering and dividing goes to an all time high.

Where does it say in the bible that single people who have accomplished much should be preyed upon to support the lifestyles of those who choose to have a family, however lack the proper resources to do so?

These individuals who have cultivated kleptomania into an art form, cover up their deceptive acts with ploys of extortion. It is their business to gather family secrets and disperse them as they see fit in order to conceal their wrong doings.

When I was a little girl my Granny often stressed, “Never mess with other people’s things because it is impolite.” She would even go as far as saying, “Whatever you do to another person, it will come back to you in a most shocking way, therefore do not take advantage of another person’s possessions.”

My Granny was a most gracious and kind person, and the legacy she left behind does not reflect the behavior of some family members. It is as if they have lost all sense of decorum and gone bonkers. I know she is rolling in her grave about developments which have transpired over the years.

Don’t get me wrong, I am not trying to make myself seem so perfect and flawless. However, as a child I often learned when I borrowed an item without asking my parents, karma would make me misplace it and have to stand up to bigger consequences than just borrowing the item. Therefore, I realized it was better to ask, and be told an emphatic NO, than to take it and end up with dire consequences down the road.

The bottom line regarding all these shenanigans is, some people aspire to do great things in life so they can Lord it over the rest of us without an ounce of humility and respect.