Family Misfortunes

We all get some good stuff and some bad stuff at birth. Intelligence, beauty, personality, health and talent are randomly distributed among the population, and thus randomly passed on genetically. Other things that shape our lives, besides our own free will, are family wealth, dynamics and members. If you actually enjoy being a part of your particular family, give yourself 1000 Life Points and a gold star and consider yourself one of God's chosen few. I personally did quite poorly in that department. On a scale of 1 to 10 I'd rate my family a 3, and that's on a good day, and have spent all my life wishing it had been otherwise. Naturally there are a few gems among the muck and mud--a cousin here, an uncle there--but taken as a whole, my family has been neither my long nor strong suit.

Now, as the unfolding dramas of my few remaining family members continue to play out, with weary soldiers lining up for another battle, I'm wondering if I might make some money off the whole lot of them with a gigantic, juicy novel, after which I could cash out and flee to Mexico, since what I did get at birth was talent, and I can write like the dickens when I want. It would have to be a fantasy of course, since if I told a straightforward account of my relatives and their twisted souls and floundering fortunes, any sane reader would toss it aside in disgust muttering, "How preposterous, that would never happen!" For now, I'll just go make some lunch. I may vacuum.