Yesterday my cousin arrived from Mexico. The last time he was here he came with his fiancé, and afterwards I went to walk in Southern France leaving my home to them on their way back on a tour through Europe.
My cousin comes to Spain often in order to buy merchandise for his online store, and even though his trip was for pleasure and not business, he found deals he could not refuse, and bought more stuff than he could transport back to Mexico.
When I arrived home after my walk I found two large suitcases and the storage area of my couch stuffed with soccer t-shirts. I was bothered by the fact that he hadn't asked me if this was OK, but to add to my botherness, he then asked me to attend people who would come to my home to pick up small quantities of clothing to transport back to Mexico. I resented this more than anything, having to schedule people to pick up things at home and dealing with their flakiness. I communicated in no uncertain terms that I was extremely bothered by what he did, setting up my home as a distribution center and me as its attendant.
Last night my cousin invited me for dinner at a nice place. He said to me "I came to Spain because I really had cravings for torreznos, the t-shirts were just an excuse". I looked at him straight in the eye and said "you seem completely unconcerned that you dumped all that stuff on me and had me attend the five people who came for it. Let me be clear if I wasn't clear enough over whatsapp: that was a completely dick move and I was fuming about it. If you ever do that again, we're going to have a problem. I'll probably just dump it in a bin. Don't ever do that again". His face showed surprise but he said he had understood that I was bothered about it. I could tell he was embarrassed and quickly changed the topic, but he didn't apologize.
I didn't have the heart to tell him I will very likely not go to his wedding, and I didn't want him to relate this incident with me not attending. When I originally agreed to go to their wedding in Mexico, this was because I would be skipping Christmas holidays in lieu of his wedding, but—I think I haven't written about this—my sister and my mother are coming to visit me at the end of November. My nephew was selected to participate in training at FC Barcelona and I suggested it would be a good time to get all together, so I bought a ticket for mom. My sister is staying two weeks, my mother six weeks, and this will burn through whatever budget I had to travel to Mexico. I'm very much looking forward to their visit, and the expenses are not an issue, but I don't want to go into debt in order to attend my cousin's wedding.
We'll see.