Comedian Jenée: People are Idiots

That Damn Family Christmas Card

I have a good relationship with my parents but one area of discord over the years has revolved around Mom’s annual Christmas card. It’s always a time-consuming creative endeavor that’s sent to everybody who has voluntarily (and sometimes not) provided my parents with their home address.

The problem I have is that the little blurb on me never seems to portray me accurately, or at least, not in the best light possible. For example, one year when I’d traveled overseas to entertain military troops and was writing for a national magazine, my portion only mentioned that I’d bartended for Wolfgang Puck. Last year’s card said that I made frequent trips to Arizona to see my nephews (i.e. Jenée has no life of her own).

It’s not that Mom deliberately discounts my activities for the year, she just makes odd choices sometimes. And it’s not always in regards to my recap. A couple years ago, my brother worked on the season’s number one new tv show. Mom’s card that year mentioned how he’d moved into a new apartment with a lovely view of the Mormon church. If I recall correctly, the card included a picture of that view and none of my brother. But I’m the bad sheep because I complain about that stuff and my siblings don’t. I strongly suspect their Christmas envelopes weigh more than mine.

So yesterday I received this year’s card. It’s a small booklet and each page contains a photo in an ornament and around the ornament is a couple lines about some of my parent’s activities through the year. With so little room for text, I figured it was impossible for me to get screwed this time.

I was wrong.

First of all, my name is written as “Jenee.” I’m used to people leaving out my accent mark and, while I always notice, it usually doesn’t bother me. But she’s the one who gave me the name with the accent mark. She’s the one that sentenced me to a life of having to press “Alt 1-3-0″ every time I type my name (and on my laptop, I have to press “fn” and “num lock” as well). All I’m asking is that my own Mama spell it right.

The bit on me contains all of five words and Mom probably thought she was safe from my ire. Unfortunately, those five words happen to be, “Jenee (right) & friend Carrie” on top of a picture of me posed very cozily with an old friend. Now, if I were to receive this card from someone, I’d probably think, “Hmmm… Jenée’s not married… she’s a comic…she’s always been pretty tough… the picture could have easily been cropped to just her face but it wasn’t so there must be a reason why her ‘friend’ was included in the family Christmas card. I guess this is her mom’s way of announcing Jenée’s a big dyke.” Not that there’s anything wrong with being a big dyke, I’ve just found that sort of marketing isn’t particularly effective for meeting men (well, lesbians definitely attract guys’ attention but can only hold it for maybe 5-10 minutes at a time).

On top of it all, it’s not even a good picture of me!

I didn’t say anything to Mom this time, mostly because I don’t think any of her friends have hot single sons who need to know the truth. But it sure would be nice if she’d give me final script approval in the future so the world could finally learn about my torrid affair with George Clooney and this cure for cancer that I found.