My parents don’t really keep in touch with anyone in the family other than my aunt, who they are kind of forced to keep in touch with because she lives right upstairs from them. So pretty much every time I talk to her on the phone, which is averaging about twice a week now, she goes down the line of my aunts and my uncle and each of my cousins to see how each is doing, as though I talk to to them every day (I obviously do not).

“What about your uncle?” my mom asked today. “Have you talked to him lately? How is he doing?”

“I haven’t been in touch with him since he wished me a happy birthday earlier this month,” I mumbled, disinterested. “Why do you always ask me about everyone in the family? If you want to know how they are, you can easily ask them yourself. You live closer to almost all of them than I do. You can call them and go visit them.”

My mom laughed. “No, I don’t want to talk to them. I just want to ask how they are. There’s nothing wrong with asking how someone is doing, is there?”

Then you clearly don’t care enough, so why don’t you just stop asking to make annoying small talk?