I'm Dreaming of a Pink Christmas

I have a general rule that I don't blog about my family. Although the material is often times priceless (see: incident in which my dad pooped in the woods at a local golf course), I would hate it if they got their feelings hurt. Because then they would stop paying on my undergraduate loans.
But seeing as how I don't technically consider my sister family, she's fair game. And so our story begins.
With only hours to go before my parents' Christmas Eve celebration - an epic event of foosball, sparkling cider and awkward small talk - the little sister Carly calls and relays some troubling news: She has pink eye.
Okay, that's gross, I say. So I guess you're not coming tonight, right?
No, she tells me. I still have food to make for the party.
A little background on this holiday get-together: For my folks, life is basically the annual Christmas Eve party interuppted by the other 364 days of the year. They spend weeks on the planning, invitations and cooking. It's a big deal.
But long ago, Mom abandoned the kitchen and left my sister in charge of the food. Well, it's not so much food as a series of experimental hors d'oeuvres and desserts - lots of them. Every year she spends the days and weeks before the party cooking and fussing over the food. So when Carly tells me the day of an event that she's come down with conjunctivitis after preparing a meal for dozens of people, I get a little grossed out.
You see, she's a kindergarten teacher, which means she's a walking inoculant. With little kids sneezing, coughing and snotting all over her each day, she carries more communicable diseases than a Detroit prostitute.
And she's making me dinner.
Apparently in her world, bacterial infections are a way of life. But I don't want her nasty pus all over my prosciutto, purulent discharge on my bruschetta, or crusty eye mucus in my tapas.
So as she's rubbing her eyes and setting out the silverware this evening, as her airborne pathogens contaminate Mom's good china, and as her swollen eyelids drip infected tears all over the finger food, I'll be returning her Christmas present for an economy-sized bottle of Visene, a bottle of Purell and some latex gloves. And maybe - just maybe - a court order for isolation and quarantine.
And hey Carly, don't be surprised if I show up tonight with an extra large Papa John's pizza and encouraging people to eat that instead.
Because I'll just be looking out for the health of our guests.
And you'll just be dirty.