Hallelujah! Holy Shit! Where's the Tylenol?

My family is the Griswold family.   Our holidays are never normal.  Long ago we claimed the movie National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation as our family theme movie.  Here is an example of one of my favorites: 

It's Thanksgiving.  The day before, my immediate family on my father's side (father, step-mother, step-sister, sister and me) loads into the family Blazer and drives half way to where my uncle lives.  My uncle's family (uncle, aunt, three absolutely insane boy cousins) does the same.  We meet at the same Friendly's restaurant we've met all our lives the day before Thanksgiving for the Annual Turkey Trade-off. 

This is not just tradition in our family, it's an Event.  My uncle is a school teacher and my aunt a penny-pincher.  My aunt, to this day, buys Kool-Aid and will only put 1/4 of the amount of sugar in it.  It's sour and disgusting (yes, even more disgusting than the full-sugar shit).  Don't try to tell me she's doing it for the health of her children, no.  If anyone is willing to feed their children Red Dye number three thousand sixty seven, cutting down on the sugar content has nothing to do with health.  She's cheap.  Their frugalness drives my father insane.  So the day begins with my father bitching and moaning the entire hour-long drive to Friendly's about how this year will be the same as every year and uncle's family is so cheap that dad will end up paying for everyone's meal, which will inevitably include my cousins each ordering the largest ice cream sundae on the menu and dad will have to sit there and watch his misbehaving nephews load themselves up with sugar and drive him mad.   The bitching session usually includes something about how dad always buys the 26lb family turkey for the meal that my aunt refuses to allow him to help prepare and will end up roasting to a dry pulp.  He also gripes about how when my poor, poor grandmother asks for a few leftovers to take home with her, my aunt will give her two slices of turkey and not much else.  My sisters and I sit in the back of the car trying to suppress giggles.  We've learned to laugh at dad's rampages.  If he hears us laughing, he'll usually whip his body around in the seat, face red and eyes bulging and say something to the extent of, "You think it's funny?  You like it that I get taken advantage of?  Just you wait!  I'll show you what's funny!"  Which just makes us laugh even more. 

So the day of Thanksgiving arrives, and we again pile into the car.  This time we have to make a detour and pick up my mostly deaf grandmother and grandfather and my mentally retarded uncle, so the trip is extra long.  There's not enough room for everyone in the car, so my sisters and I are forced into the way-back trunk area of the Blazer without seat belts.  As if that's not bad enough, we're stuck in the car for an hour with people screaming back and forth at each other.  Not angry screaming, no, but just yelling every sentence so that grandma and grandpa can hear.  They refuse to believe that they're going deaf and won't allow anyone to mention the possibility that they might need a hearing aid.  So the noise level in the car during the hour-long trip usually leaves anyone who isn't going deaf with a massive headache. 

You're probably asking yourself, "why must AfrindieMum point out that her uncle is mental retarded?  does it really have any bearing on the story?"  Why yes, it does.  I'll tell you why.  My uncle, god love him, has the mental capacity of about a seventh grader.  He's fully functioning.  He worked for the state for 35 years, gets a great pension, and his father, an accountant, wisely invested all of his money his entire life.  He's sitting pretty now.  It sucks that he is now dying of bone cancer because he smoked his entire life.  But he's traveled the country alone (with travel groups) and has lived a very full and happy life.  The problem with my uncle is this:  When he was two, his babysitter dropped him.  He fell on his head on the concrete sidewalk and was in a coma for weeks.  After this, he was diagnosed with epilepsy and a multitude of other health problems.  Back then, people didn't treat people like my uncle like normal people.  They didn't really know what to do.  So my grandparents did what their doctor suggested, and sent him away to a swanky boarding school for the mentally challenged in Kentucky where his every need was met by the staff.  He grew up without ever being taught manners or how to do anything for himself.  By the time my grandparent's savings and insurance ran out and they had to bring my uncle home to live, my uncle was a spoiled brat.  He lived his entire life with my grandparents until just five years ago when my grandmother died.  He became an alcoholic who was obsessed with strip joints.  He was a seventh grade boy in a fifty year old body with no self-control.  I remember as a kid, when he was drinking, he used to grab ahold of my piggy tail and hold my head down to the armrest in his Lazy Boy chair until I screamed loud enough to get my parents' attention.  He's much better now that he's a recovering alcoholic.  But he's still a treat.  And like seventh grade boys do, he's always doing things to get attention.  So now you have a little background. 

Once we arrive, we enter the house that perpetually smells of urine because apparently the four boys that live there can't figure out how to aim at the toilet and my aunt is too cheap to replace the urine-soaked carpet in the bathrooms.  My three male cousins are usually beating up on each other.  And I don't mean just child's play.  One cousin actually managed to break his brother's arm during a fight.  We're offered sour Kool-Aid that we politely decline for water instead.  My step-mother, who works at the Pepperidge Farm factory, gives my aunt and uncle four twenty pound bags full of cookies, crackers and Godiva chocolates (who knew Godiva was owned by Pepperidge Farm?).  Instead of setting some out for people to eat, she tucks them away in the high cupboard where no one is allowed to touch them.  These bags cost like fifty cents a piece.  My step-mother always offers to bring them more if it isn't enough for them.  They still pack them away for a rainy day.  When my grandmother asks at the end of the day for a few cookies and chocolates to take home with her, as is tradition, she's given a small lunch baggie with about ten cookies.  My grandmother bitches the whole way home about how cheap her daughter-in-law is, which starts my father in on his rampage, which my uncle repeats at the top of his lungs.  oh, the fun. 

As we all sit down to dinner, around the six large fold-up tables that have been set up in the living room, my younger cousin's canary gets out of it's cage again.  It promptly flies over to me, it's favorite family member, and perches itself on my head where it takes the liberty of relieving itself.  I swear, it happens every. damn. year.  Once I clean myself up and return to the table, talk is at maximum level amongst the elderly.   My sisters and I try to not roll our eyes at the commotion around us.  Right as the turkey is being placed on the table, we hear a sound like "wwwhoooooaaaakkkt" come from somewhere in the middle of the room under the table.  We all look around at each other, puzzled, when my dad flips out and screams, "For christ's sake, Timmy (my uncle), your effing dog is puking under the table," and stomps out of the room.  The elderly sit around unaware of what's going on around them.  Until my uncle, who wants attention, starts screaming the same thing my father screamed.  And my grandparents look up from their conversation and say, "what?  what?"  And my uncle screams again,   "For christ's sake, Timmy (my uncle), your effing dog is puking under the table."  And my grandma says, "What?  The dog's under the table?"  And this goes on a few more minutes until finally everyone knows that the damn dog is yaking on a turkey bone under the table. 

*********************

I could go on and on with these stories.  I have one about when my sister and I were pulled into a ditch by the snow in my father's car.  Both us and the car were unharmed - just pulled into a big snowbank, and my father refused to talk to us the entire Christmas holiday.  I could tell you about my aunt that's had four husbands and three kids by three different men and how she had a shotgun wedding with the first because she thought she was pregnant and got her period on the day of her wedding.  Instead of calling off the wedding, she went ahead with it because she felt too embarrassed to tell anyone.  Or I could tell you about my husband's family.  About his aunt no-sex-Nellie.  Her husband divorced her because she stopped having sex with him because her cult told her so. 

The family drama is one of my favorite subjects.  I love hearing about family dysfunction.  Hopefully you've enjoyed mine. 

Comments

[Apartment Number One]

Hillarious! Thank you for this. I didn't spend Thanksgiving with my parents or in-laws this year, and I kinda missed all the kooky craziness.

Can I put in a vote for the next post? I vote for the my-view-on-being-a-multicultural-family-and-raising-a-biracial-daughter-with-a-healthy-racial-identity-post.

[sster]

Haahahahaahahahaah! Oh, Afrindiemum! I'm DYING!

[Jen (yup, another one)]

Oh, my dear god in heaven, that is HYSTERICAL. Truth is way, way, way stranger and funnier than fiction. You should write a movie about that family....

[cityslickermom]

haha! And I thought my family was dysfunctional! Too funny.
By the way, I think you should open that chicken and waffles joint-I'd be a customer!

[greensunflower]

That is better than National Lampoon's... truly... so funny.

[DoctorMama]

I love the recovering alcoholic sitting pretty retarded uncle. No one could make that up.

[Green]

Holy SHIT! This is hands down your best post ever! Except maybe for the one where you went to a work convention and stalked that woman you got a friend-crush on. But dude, why aren't you stealing packets of sugar at Friendly's to bring with you to the Kool Aid Lady's house the next day?

[Mama Muse]

Hell yeah I am enjoying this post! Great guns, you have some great blog fodder related to you. Lucky. And funny.

Cheers to wacky families!

[sedie]

I read this last week a few minutes before leaving work and was chuckling my whole 1 hour ride home! Thanks for sharing. I always think part of the fun of the holidays is enduring such story making moments as the ones you have written about here. . . . I'm still chuckling just remembering!

[jan]

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[djek]

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[ssre]

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[dok]

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[maik]

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[Amanda]

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[sank]

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