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Motivation

My sister doesn't live in the same state as I do, so it's always good when she visits. We usually end up hanging out at least part of the time, and it's good to catch up. Sometimes, it leads to a little bit of hilarity because I let her use my room (I get up really early and don't want to wake her by walking through her sleeping area). Either way, it's pretty much always a good time.

Well, she and her husband visited recently. There was a lot of the usual banter about life and people we knew, but one exchange in particular stood out. See, my brother-in-law works for a company based in the Bay Area. He was flying in for work, so my sister decided to tag along on the trip and visit family (i.e., us) while he was there. However, since he was in the area for work, his company put him up in a hotel. Given that they'd already paid for the room, he planned on using it the whole time. It just sort of made sense.

Now, my mom had assumed that both my sister and my brother-in-law were going to be staying with us for some period of time. She didn't know all of the details of their itinerary, but it seemed like a pretty reasonable assumption. Knowing that, she picked up some food that both of them liked: seafood for my sister, and hash browns for my brother-in-law. They took pretty good care of us when we were in Colorado recently (even if I did gash myself in the knee), so it seemed like a nice thing to do.

The problem, however, was that my brother-in-law also had several work dinners to attend. So, not only did he have a room near the office, but some of his nights were spoken for. At that point, he just figured he'd stay near work the whole time. The logistics made a little more sense that way.

My sister was okay with that, but she did relay the fact that he was missing out on hash browns. Sure, he could find a way to get himself some. And it's not like they don't have those at home. So, to my sister, it was just a comment in passing. I wasn't there for the actual conversation, but I imagine she said something like, "ah, got it. Too bad, I'll let my mom know not to worry about those hash browns."

As it turns out, we all underestimated how much he likes hash browns. Again, I wasn't there for the conversation, but he then decided that the logistics of driving over and back weren't THAT bad. Yup, he sort of got bribed by hash browns. As you can imagine, I had my share of chuckles about this. My sister was equally amused, though she also said she was going to poke him as a result (she may or may not have replaced "poke" with "kidney punch").

I think I'm going to have to keep hash browns in the fridge whenever my sister and her husband are around.

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