A Visit from the Relatives

(Originally from August 2006)

I am  zombied today, got about three hours of sleep today before the relatives came. Luckily, they’re day people so they’ve skittered back to their motel for the night. I say luckily because I am zonked, but tomorrow it won’t be so lucky. You have to love this

Aunt:  “Oh, we’ll be back tomorrow morning.”

Me: “Morning?!”

Aunt: “Oh not before nine, because we’re all tired.”

Me: *thinking * “Nine!?!?  I went to bed at NOON! And you’re saying NINE!?!?!”

So, I’m going to be dead tomorrow.

Though you have to love when the family gets together. To explain a little bit, so you can get kind of a mental picture I’ll give you all the players:

 

• me
• My mom= a liberal  except on abortion and gun control issues. She’s all for gay marriage and if people want to-do drugs quietly, no biggie. She’s also against the prison system.
• My brother (C) a crackpot. He tells very longwinded stories and looses track of the subject
• (AC) My Aunt (mom’s sis), a mother to the world. Ultra Conservative and very religious. Against anything that most of your “Christian” groups are against.
• (UD) My Uncle, married to the aunt. A “born again” so to speak. Used to be wild in his younger days and now has turned ultra religious as well. Enjoys lecturing people and pointing out the error of their ways, though he honestly believes he is trying to help.
• (UM) My Uncle, (mom’s bro) an ex-hippie/drug addict who recently got out of prison for assisting in a suicide of his roommate. Also disabled and an extreme Liberal.

Okay, now keep these in mind. We’re sitting around, me and Chris watching what we say and my mom not bothering, as usual. So somehow we get into drugs and here is roughly the conversation:

Mom: “Frankly I don’t care about drugs. If people want to do drugs that’s their choice.”

UD: “Well, you would care if they ran over your child.”

Mom: “They’re in as much danger now, anyway. The government is just wasting my tax dollars to throw them all in prison-”

Me: “Well, frankly, I find it fascinating that they yell about taking illegal drugs and then the doctors shove drugs down your throat all of the time, whose side effect lists are ten times worse.”

C: “I’m on about ten pills a day now”

UD: *speaking to my mom * “By that way, have you tried the Cayenne Pepper pills?”

UM: “There’s nothing wrong with drugs.”

Mom: “I eat Cayenne pepper in my chili.”

Me: “Well, as expensive as they are I don’t know how anyone affords them anyway.”

UD: “No, no, you have to take it-”

AC: “It comes in a pill.”

C: *launches into very long story that begins about how pharmacies pay a much smaller price for drugs than they charge and winds up in the end to finish with someone he knows/knew who nicks drugs *

UD: “He’s lucky he’s not in prison.”

UM: “Oh yeah, what drugs?”

C: *gives a list *

AC: “He’ll end up in prison one of these days.”

UM: *insert name of drug here  – started with an O * Is good stuff. You can melt that down and shoot it up.”

AC: *turning to mom * *I missed this bit, but they moved into books somehow sorry. *

UD: “Oh yeah, that sounds like real fun. I’ll remember that.”

Me: *laughs – nothing else to say *

UM: “Oh and it was the same thing here [as in Nebraska] buying Sudafed.”

UD: “Were you in the system?”

UM: “Nope. The lady said the database isn’t from state to state.”

AC: “…and the school called me when *one of her sons who s now an adult * checked out all these horrible books on Satanism.Hhe was just curious…”

UD: “Oh, so you mean you could go to Iowa, Nebraska, Kansas and Missouri and buy enough Sudafed to make meth?”

Ac: “…So I asked them why all those horrible books were even in a school library and they said that they couldn’t ban them, so I asked them if they had a bible…”

C: “You’d waste more money in gas then you’d make.”

UM: “Not to mention how long it would take.”

“Ac: “…And of course they said ‘Well no, we can’t have that in school library.’ by the time they were done they were sorry they’d called me!”

UD: “You could always use a bicycle.” *receives look from the aunt *

C: “I guess they’d get suspicious when they saw a guy on a bicycle buying boxes of Sudafed.”

Me: “Well, they ban books here. You can’t even get Harry Potter.”

UD: “A tired guy from all that peddling!”

Me: “It’s considered witchcraft, you know.”

Mom: “Well if people want to take meth and get addicted to it, it’s their problem.”

AC: “Well it is classified as that. The spells and the magic…”

Mom: “I like Harry Potter.”

UM: “Oh, it’s not that addicting. I used to do meth years ago and I was never addicted to it.”

Me: “Well, it’s just because she (JK) labeled the school Witchcraft and Wizardry. If she hadn’t used witches and had said sorceress instead….”

UD: *makes snorting noise *.

UM: “If you have an addictive personality you’re going to be addicted to something.”

Me: *nods at UM * “Well, I’m in a lot of internet Harry Potter groups. I don’t see anything wrong with it.”

AC: “internet groups?”

Me: *explains *

UD: “Well all I do is clean out my e-mail and I get bored.”

Me: “You need to branch out more, then. Just doing e-mail is boring.”

Mom: “I wish that the anti-gay people would stop sending me e-mails.”

UM: “I just watch TV. I like the movies.”

Mom: “I keep deleting them. I don’t care if gay people want to get married, let them. At least someone is getting married.”

UD: “Oh, and a couple of soaps. I got hooked on them when I was on the inside – keeps you hetero. They have good looking women on those.”

AC: “Well, I have issues with that. My main concern is them teaching it at school as an alternative lifestyle.”

Me: “I used to watch Passions while I ate lunch. But yeah, they always have good looking women on them…”

Mom: “They already do now.” *shrugs *

Me: “…They say soaps are made for women, but I don’t think any of the guys are really hot.”

AC: *Purses lips and changes subject to grandbaby *

UM: “Well, I guess the guys are good looking. Not really into guys, but they’re pretty buff.”

Me: “They don’t have enough hair for me.  I like it long.”

Mom: “Yeah, me too.”

 

Now you get a tiny picture our conversations. I really should record them and make transcripts. Though,  back before my grandpa died it was rather rousing. My mom and Uncle would get in shouting matches at each other, grandpa would wave his fork and yell about “whores” and abortions, and I just sat there quietly soaking everything in because my family never felt the need to treat us like children who couldn’t hear their conversations. Did that warp me? Maybe, but I think I’m a lot more opened minded and have a lot more common sense because of it.

So, what is the point of any of this? Nothing. This is one of those blogs that, as my Uncle so poetically defined it, are “one of those things where people write their deep thoughts that no one cares about.” Yep.

Tags: Cayenne Pepper, comedy, conversation, Family, Harry Potter, Hogwarts, Illegal drug trade, J.K. Rowling, Nebraska, religion, Sudafed, visit