My niece turned 6 on Wednesday, so J and I took Friday and Monday off and made the trek up to Dallas for the usual fun and adventures in crazyconservativeland.
Oh, Mustard, Where Art Thou?
In The Great Mustard Caper of 2009 I told the horrifying story of condiments gone bad. The upshot of it was that, over the Christmas holidays while making J a sandwich, I discovered three bottles of mustard gone bad in the parents’ fridge. Then the bottles mysteriously disappeared. It wasn’t me, I swear! This caused a huge scandal in the house that everyone is still talking about. Seriously.
When I arrived on Friday, the first thing my stepdad said was that I needed to keep my hands off his mustard. That he had counted the bottles and knew exactly how many there were. And this continued throughout the weekend. In fact, the entire family (and in my family that is a lot of people) was brought into it. I continued to deny–it really wasn’t me–and he continued to heckle. And when I left today, I hid all the condiments in the house.
Everything is Louder in Dallas
For my mom’s birthday earlier in the month, she received four seasons of The Closer on DVD. Now, I love that show; I’ve seen all the episodes. And I’m happy–ecstatic–to watch them again if only so that I don’t have to watch fucking Glenn Beck on FOX News. The parents turned him on for a few minutes, and I nearly vomited while throwing my glass of water through the television screen. Anyhow, we’re watching an episode from the first season, and the conversation goes something like this: What’d she say? I don’t know. I can’t understand. *volume goes up* Wait! What was that? I can’t hear anything. Can you turn it up a notch? *volume goes up again–several notches* Hon, can you hear that? No, not really. I still can’t hear it. OK, I’ll turn it up.
At this point, the volume goes up again and blood begins to drip from my nose and ears and the dog runs from the room.
My Dogs are Tired
My sister doesn’t have much luck with dogs. She’s had three dogs–three crazy as fuck dogs–in the last 10 years. The first one, Terrence, was a scruffy, ill-behaved mutt. He was fairly sweet until my sister had my niece. At that point, he tried to bite the baby, and, failing that, he pooped with frequency in her room. Needless to say, he found his way into someone else’s good home.
The next one, Gary (yes, named after the snail in Spongebob Squarepants), was a gift from my sister’s crazy boss. Let me state, in case no one has ever told you, that it is absolutely not cool to give pets as gifts. Apparently, or so my sister says, it is also not a good idea to give musical instruments, but that’s a story for later. Gary was a small bag of bones with thin, long white hair that allowed his very pink skin to show through. He was very sweet but had a strange love for sheetrock and drywall. He chewed several holes in the walls of my sister’s condo. And, he needed special (read expensive) grooming and vet care. Eventually Gary was given to a family that could better appreciate his uniqueness.
One day my sister came home with this gorgeous blond on her arm. She had a big chest that narrowed to a slender waist. Her thighs were muscular. She was very athletic and loved to run. She was named Sophia. She’s part golden lab, part greyhound–actually, I have no idea what she is, but her coloring and size are lab-ish and her shape is like a greyhound. She practically vibrates with energy, and her tail wags very enthusiastically and causes her hips to sway. We call her WiggleButt.
You might think that the oddest thing about Sophia would be that she has, in the last couple of months, twice drank an entire liter of canola oil. Or that she once ate a loaf of bread. Or that time she ate a bag of flour. But, no.
On Sophia’s left side is an enlarged nipple. Seriously. Huge. As in Really Fucking Big. As in, it’s just hanging out there and you can’t look away. It’s got to be as big around as a dime and at least an inch long. Maybe that doesn’t seem very big, but just think of it. You’ll get there. I wish I had a picture because words just don’t do it justice. But when I tried to take one, my sister got all pissy and said I was mean. But, hey, I’m not the one that nicknamed her The Big Nipper.
All the World’s a Pizza
Friday night we ordered pizza. Finding decent pizza in a town where half the population is Hispanic, half is Vietnamese, and the other half is White Trash is nearly impossible. So, we settle for mediocre pizza from a local place the parents love, and we’re grateful, frankly, that we’re not eating some processed meat product from my parents’ pantry. So there we all are, eating our veggie pizza. As far as I know, there were no discussions going on about politics, race, religion, or any of the other topics that might unfortunately be brought up when we visit my parents. My stepdad says to me, as he puts a veggie slice on his plate: “See, I’m not a racist, I eat the black ones.” I’m assuming he was referring to the olives. What I want to know–what does it say about me that I don’t even like olives, that I, in fact, loathe olives? I mean, I had no idea that my eating or not eating olives was a reflection of my attitudes on race. I’m not who I thought I was, that’s for sure.
———————–
“Back Home Part 2” will be posted soon…and it will have pictures.