My family members decline to be amusing...

so I am borrowing people from other families, for the time being, until they get their act together.

A friend of mine worried about her parents, who were living atop a steep hill in Vermont. When it snowed it became impossible for them to get out or for anyone else to get in. This would not have been a big problem except he was 90 and she was 86.

Apparently they had been engaged in a power struggle for about 65 years. She got her way in one respect, choosing to live on a remote inaccessible hilltop which had once been her family's farm, even though he despised the country and wanted a brownstone in Brooklyn Heights. On everything else, he bullied her until he got his way.

For instance, he hated cigarette smoke, so he made her quit smoking. He made life unpleasant for visitors, including their three children. But most important, he refused to have a heating system installed. They relied on a wood stove. If she insisted on living on her hilltop, she had to chop wood, and did.

Well, at last he died, at about 92. Almost immediately after the funeral, she had a heating system installed and resumed smoking cigarettes--after a 60-year-long hiatus. The last I heard, she was still on her hilltop.

I guess the person who stays in the game the longest wins.