It's time to introduce my grandparents. Only one set of grandparents will be featured here. The grandparents from the other side of the family are a combination of not-blog-worthy and dead.
Warning: Potentially Not Funny
They need good nicknames because "Grandma" and "Grandpa" are just too banal and quite frankly too nice for them. "Satan" is perhaps a bit harsh, and last I checked he didn't have a wife anyway. Okay here's the first contest on my blog: whoever comes up with a good nickname for them wins. (I have a feeling I know who will win since I currently only have one reader) Characteristics of the nutjobs: they have more money than brains. They use their money to gain corrupt power and to force others to do their bidding. They only care about appearances. The best I could come up with so far is that they're a still-married version of Donald and Ivana Trump... rich socialites with very little concern for others. But the money comes from Grandma's side and she definitely rules the roost. One thing's for sure, they aren't Bill and Melinda Gates because there's nothing philanthropic about them.
Wait, I got it. Contest over. Grandma is Prima Donna. Technically Prima Ballerina, because in her younger days she could rock the toe shoes, but that just doesn't roll off the
tongue fingers. She's definitely the stereotypical prima donna type. And grandpa is The Corporal. I didn't have the heart to make him a private, especially since I think he was a sergeant in real life. He was demoted by marriage though.
Yes, they're socialites. My podunky hometown has a brunch at the community center every Mother's Day... it's just a buffet line of podunk town catered food, and then you go sit on metal folding chairs around cafeteria tables. Welcome to podunk town. I haven't been able to attend this high-class affair since I live far far away, but I've heard stories from the less crazy parts of the family that Prima Donna insists in sitting smack-ass in the middle so that everyone has to walk by her on the way to either the door or the buffet, and her neck is practically on a swivel making sure she keeps an eye on EVERYONE in the room. Afterwards, she will badmouth anyone who was there but didn't stop to visit with her. Of course she couldn't be bothered to get up and go initiate a conversation with anyone, they must come to her. How she views Mother's Day brunch:
Yes that's The Corporal as the court jester. There's a running joke among the younger members of the family where a wife will make a ridiculous statement, then haul off and whack her husband on the arm and go "Isn't that right, Corporal?" and then the husband will meekly, with glazed over eyes, go "yep yep yep" because we've seen this happen so many times at the grandparents' house.
They also used to go through mom and dad's trash, looking for ammunition (figuratively, not literally) to use against them...
"Yay now we can blackmail them into doing things we want!" I should mention that at the time we were living in an "apartment" in the second story of Prima and Corporal's house... Designated Drinker and Bran Flake were fresh out of college and poor farmers. We did have our own kitchen and bathroom up there, and had our own entrance to the house... but it was still just way too close for comfort. And it was a way for them to control us... "you will do what we say or else you won't have a place to live anymore! Ha ha ha ha ha ha!" I say "we" and "us" because Drinker and Flake moved in right after college and stayed for almost 5 years, during which time I was conceived and born, and Buffalo Bill was also conceived, although the parental unit finally managed to scrape together enough money to get a house of our own built 2 months before he was born. So I got to live in that crazy situation for 3 years. Thankfully I have virtually no memories of it.
On a much more personal note, here's how they have controlled me over the years. When I was old enough to drive, my heart was set on having a Chevy Blazer. This was back before SUVs were for soccer moms. I have no desire to have one now. Our friendly small town car dealer hunted around and found one in a very unappealing shade and at least 10 years old, but it was cheap enough that my parents agreed to let me have it... I paid for part of it and they paid for part of it. Prima Donna was livid... "that's not a ladylike vehicle! I can't believe my granddaughter is being seen in public in something like that!" (in an odd twist of fate, she actually has a Trailblazer now. I don't have the balls to point out the irony to her) Fast-forward to my senior year of high school. I'm checking out colleges. She tells me if I go to the school she went to then she'll buy me a car. Well, it became increasingly obvious even to her that I was not going to be attending her alma mater, so she "compromised" by saying if I went to the other state school in our home state, she'd put a down payment on a car. I went out of state. She bought me a blanket.
A year later (I spent my freshman year having to mooch off other friends with cars, thanks to my bestest friend who had a car!) I was ready to get myself some wheels. When Prima realized I would probably be looking at something equally unladylike as my Blazer had been, and she also had resigned herself that I would not be transferring back to the alma mater any time soon, she opened up the checkbook and imposed her will upon me. She paid for half of my car, on the condition that it was cute and red and 2-door and was the exact same car as she was driving at the time. No kidding, we had matching cars for a couple years. Thank god I lived across a state line.
Three years later I landed a high-paying internship, and promptly traded the little red thing off on a baby pickup truck. I loved my baby pickup truck! Prima contributed nothing to the purchase of the baby pickup truck, which was fine by me. Another three years went by, and I was no longer working for high-paying company and was driving a 7 hour round trip to visit a boyfriend at least twice a month, and couldn't afford the baby pickup truck anymore. So I traded it off on a boring sedan. Grandma whipped out the checkbook again that time. And I let her. Apparently I am a whore.
Anyway, what finally brought this all to a head, is that Buffalo Bill and the Prom Queen have separated. I'm not sure how it's going to end, but I do know that I love them both and support them both (emotionally, not financially) and I will continue to love and support both of them no matter how it all works out (unless of course she bleeds him dry and runs off with the kids in a divorce settlement, then I may not have quite such warm-fuzzy feelings about her) I am also trying to stay out of it, it's their issue to work out, and they need to do whatever's best for both of them. I got a phone call last week from Corporal... he called me to bitch and whine about how Buffalo is just being selfish and only thinking of himself and not giving a thought to how this will affect anyone else. Now to an outsider, it may sound like he was concerned about the Queen and semi-homeless kids. But let me translate for you: "He isn't giving any thought as to how this will appear to the
informed members of society gossip-mongers in our podunk town, and how it will affect us when we go to coffee and socialize with people who we have deemed to be worthy of being called "friend" and it will lessen our power over those we view as beneath us" No, I am not overreacting. I guarantee you that's how they view it. Some other things he said to me confirmed this, but I don't remember enough details now to be able to appropriately convey it.
Stay tuned for further adventures of insane grandparents.
