Then I vacuumed the dining room table

*Disclaimer: This post is probably going to be a hot mess.  I've already forgotten some of the stories I wanted to write about, and it just happened two days ago.  And I am writing this at 4 a.m. after waking up an hour ago and not being able to get back to sleep, so I can't deal with all those nicknames.  Characters today: Mom, Dad, Bro, SIL (and possibly also niece and nephew.  haven't gotten that far yet)  And Hitter.  That one I'm pretty comfortable with.

Yesterday morning I get a text message from the Boyfriend (okay he's a character in today's tale too)
Him: what are you up to?
Me: I'm at the farm cleaning my mother's house
*long silent pause*
Me: I should explain, she's not dead or anything.  They're just on vacation and we, umm, kinda had a party at their house while they were gone.  And now I'm cleaning.  Long story.

This past weekend Hitter and I headed to my family's farm.  He had come up with a brilliant birthday present for my dad.  See, Dad has these model trains.  He has some that were his toys when he was a kid, bought another train when Bro and I were kids, and he's picked up quite a few in the last 5 years or so on ebay.  (I refuse to capitalize the b, deal with it.  even though spell check won't deal with it.  ebay has red squiggly line, eBay doesn't.  dammit!  now I capitalized the b *sigh*)  Anyway he used to get the trains out once in a while when Bro and I were kids and just run them around the floor at the bottom of the pool table, and then packed them away for a long time... until the grandkids came along.  Then he got serious, bought some plywood, made a table, bought a whole bunch more track, made a real layout with a rail yard and a mountain and some buildings and a cattle yard and a whole crapload of lights and signals and stuff (as opposed to just running one loop on the floor)

Spell check doesn't like "crapload" either.  Spell check is an asshole.  

So the top of the table looks really nice with all the fancy stuff he's bought and wired up and tra la la.  However, underneath it was pretty redneck.  He had the plywood sitting on top of an old 1960s dining room table, with one piece of 2x4 at either end to make legs.  

Yeah that's stable.  I forgot to draw the plywood sagging on either end and warping in the middle.  I'm all about encouraging my readers to use their imaginations.  You're welcome!

And his electricity!  Oh my stars!  When he was wiring all the lights and signals and stuff, he just ran all the wires to one place, wrapped the wires around each other, and stuffed them into the holes of a power strip!  Holy crap.  I'm pretty sure that's not up to code.  But it's also not the point of this post.

So Hitter's brilliant idea was to build real legs and supports for the table...  so the grandkids won't accidentally knock it over (I'm honestly surprised the air conditioner vent over the table hadn't blown it over.  or that dad's never bumped into it in a drunken stupor and ruined it all) and the plywood will quit sagging and warping.  Hitter knows how to build train tables, we have a layout too.  He gets a bunch of lumber and mostly created the legs at home, he had to wait and do the framework after we got there, and then we loaded them up and headed to the farm this past weekend.  The biggest reason we chose this weekend even though Dad's birthday isn't for a while yet is cuz of the parental unit being on vacation.  We wanted this to be a surprise.  And now my dad has nice legs!

they're even better in real life

I should have mentioned earlier, my mother is an immaculate housekeeper.  At least the parts that show.  I honestly think she vacuumed the living room carpet the very last thing before leaving home, because there were perfect sweeper lines in the carpet with nary a footprint to be found.

("nary"?)

So Bro and SIL and I were joking about how Mom is totally going to know someone was in her house.  I mean before we left, I vacuumed the carpet, mopped the linoleum, washed our sheets and towels, re-cleaned the fridge, and she's still going to be able to sense our presence.  We even brought home the trash we accumulated this weekend!  She's still gonna know.  So rather than try to hide the fact that we were there (plus, seriously, they're gonna notice the new train table legs) I left a note that was all

Dear Mom and Dad,
  We were in your house.  Please don't be mad!  We tried to leave the house as we found it.  I cleaned as well as I am capable, I hope it's enough.  I'm a pretty terrible housekeeper.  We just came here to give dad a birthday present.
Love,
Hitter, Me, and Muppy!

(Muppy is also a terrible housekeeper.  He didn't help clean at all.  In fact, he barfed on the carpet)

(do you like how I guilted them into not being mad because we had such good intentions... I mean who doesn't like a birthday present?!  I stopped short of mentioning the fact that it's my mom's fault I'm a terrible housekeeper) 

How is it I've typed a small novel and still haven't gotten to the point of the title?  And I thought this was going to be a short story.  Well as I said, the framework for the tables had to be built at Mom and Dad's.  Which led to a whole lot of sawdust going into their basement carpet and all over everywhere.  Of course I had to clean that up, it'd be pretty shitty to show up and make a whole birthday present but then leave the mess for the birthday boy to clean up.  Right?  Anyway, the afore-mentioned dining room table that had been the main support of the train table suddenly found itself free from its train prison, but covered in sawdust.  I searched my mom's house high and low for cleaning supplies, and failed miserably.  More text messages, this time between me and SIL:

Me: do you have a dustpan and broom I could borrow?  Mom's house is so clean I can't find any cleaning supplies
SIL: yeah I do, do you need it now?  I think she just vacuums everything
Me: nah, I can wait till we see each other at lunch.  and she vacuums the linoleum too?
SIL: seriously, you know her.  she's nuts.

Which led me me vacuuming the top of a dining room table.  I also vacuumed my socks, while I was wearing them.  It was a weird weekend. 

And why in the hell does vacuum have two u's?  What a stupid word.

To top off the really weird weekend, Hitter is home today.  Guh.  I wonder if I could just sleep all day.  Maybe drink heavily.

Oh and speaking of Hey Fuck Off, there were more revelations of how incredibly stupid and hypocritical my parents are.  For instance: they have a toilet that sometimes sticks in continuous flow mode... I mean wide freaking open, sounds like there's a broken water main.  And it's been like this for YEARS.  I know this because one time three years ago I went up to house-sit for them when they were on vacation and when I showed up after they'd already left, the toilet was running.  It doesn't happen all the time, but some.  Dad is too lazy to bother putting a new flapper on the toilet, but he yells at Mom for using too much water when she's washing dishes.  And he lectures Bro and me about not taking good enough care of our houses and stuff.  This is the same guy who had so much siding missing from the outside of his house that you could see the framing and some of the insulation was missing.  Plus there's that whole electricity thing I mentioned above.  And their garage door is screwed up.  There's no tension spring.  I've asked him two or three times if maybe the thing would work better if he got it fixed.  He tells me it's not broken.  I quit arguing.  Not worth it.  Have I ever told the story about the carbon monoxide leak?!?!?  Fucktards.  I told Hitter on the way home that sometimes I kinda wish I was an orphan.  Dad isn't the only idiot either, as I mentioned above, my mom is an immaculate housekeeper... in the parts that show!  Don't open a closet though...

this was supposed to be an overloaded closet exploding... but I got tired of drawing crap.  See?  I don't even like clutter in my artwork!

 

And even funnier was when Hitter was in the kitchen and busted out laughing... see, my mom is pretty short.  I mean I'm kind of on the short side of normal, and she's shorter than I am.  Dad's no amazon either.  I think he's under 6 feet.  Neither of them can see over the top of the fridge.  So neither of them think twice about how it looks to someone who is 6'4" and can see the top of the fridge and the half dozen mousetraps all in a row up there.  No, they aren't being stored.  They're baited and set.  Because there are mice.  All over the damned house.  But instead of plugging up the holes in the siding and walls and floors and roof and trying to keep the mice out, let's just leave around a couple hundred mousetraps.  

I told Hitter if we ever inherit that house and actually want to move back to the farm, we're leveling the damned thing and starting over.  It'll be cheaper than trying to fix everything that's wrong with it.

You know what?  Now that I think about it, I'm a better housekeeper than she is.  I mean my house may not be quite up to the same immaculate standards in the parts-that-show, but first of all we do a much better job of maintaining stuff, and secondly my storage room is WAY cleaner than hers is.  I think housekeeping skills should be judged by the parts that don't show, not the parts that do.  

I hate people who only care about appearances.  Hey Fuck Off.  

This post is out of control.  I should stop now.  I should have stopped about an hour ago.

Cake Battery

Remember this?

Apparently the gender roles have continued to the next generation.  Buffalo and the Prom Queen have two kids, a 5 year old girl and a 3 year old boy.  A few stories:

• for the niece's third birthday, I made her a Dora the Explorer cake.  It was a 3D cake of my own carving.  Bran Flake asked me "will it be good enough that she will know what you're trying to make?"  Seriously.  WTF?  
• this past year for her fifth birthday, she wanted Hannah Montanna Montanah Montannah seriously, my fingers will not type that.  Anyway, long story but the moral is at one point Flake goes "well if you can't make a good cake for everybody, I suppose I can stop at the store and get something better" and then when we got to the party, she kept rearranging the presents and freaking out on people because everything had to be PERFECT
• I'm wasting a bullet point to say that the last one was a REALLY FUCKING LONG PARAGRAPH TO PUT IN BULLET POINT
• and now, just had the nephew's birthday.  No awkward questions about whether or not the train cake I was making would be recognizable as a train, no accusations that I wasn't putting enough effort into it, no rude yelling at other family members because the party wasn't perfect enough.  

So on one hand it was nice to not have to deal with psychotic grandma behavior, but I kinda feel sorry for my poor punkin nephew.  Niece is obviously the favorite.  When she misbehaves, it's "oh honey please don't do that, okay?" and then nobody notices that she turns right around and keeps doing whatever she was doing.  Nephew misbehaves and it's "NO!" and a spanking.  And while I realize that it's actually better to be a disciplinarian than to spoil a child and so in a perfect world nephew would grow up to be a much better person, I'm afraid the obvious favoritism is going to work against him and make him bitter.  It's already showing when the two kids are playing together. 

There are more stories.  It goes on and on.  She gets to travel with my folks, they never take him along and even said once that they're afraid they'd hurt her feelings if they took him... but they never think about if they're hurting his feelings by leaving him home! 

Anyway, my cake turned out well and I really wish I could have gotten a picture of the way my sweet little nephew's face lit up when he saw what I'd made.  That was pure joy.  But I had both hands holding the cake so no pictures.  Oh well, I remember what it was like and that made it all worthwhile to me!

It's Beginning To Look a Lot Like Hell

(You were supposed to sing that title.  I know "Hell" and "Christmas" don't have the same number of syllables, but I have faith in you.  You can make it work)

Okay, the whole whopping two of you that occasionally read my blog already know most of the bullshit that surrounds my Christmas world.  I won't bore you with repetition.  Again.  Over and over again.

Moving on!

However, my sister in law the Prom Queen just inspired a new picture and I couldn't resist drawing and posting.  I don't know how everyone works a gift list, but in our family you make a big-ass list of a whole bunch of suggestions and let everyone kind of pick and choose what they want to give.  And if you don't get everything on your list, either you live your life without it or you go buy it for yourself after Christmas.  And life goes on.  Well, Prom Queen hasn't quite figured out that a wish list is just that, wishes and suggestions.  It is not a DEMAND LIST.  So she will get pissed off because she has to spend so much money on Christmas gifts because there are like 50 things on my mom's list that nobody else has gotten for her yet and they just HAVE to be purchased.  And apparently she has to do it because the rest of us are too selfish and dumb to get what mom wants.  There's a huge long story that goes with this which is full of boring details... ask me if you want to know.  But the moral of the story is, nobody can explain to her that wish lists are just suggestions, not demands.  I know my brother has tried to explain this to her before, and it just led to them having a big fight.  And I got this vision in my head:

(If you're confused by the head wound, see this.  I just had to leave it in)

Merry Christmas Everyone!  *sigh*

It's a Dog's Life

The Prom Queen has issues.  Mostly she has "I don't need to learn anything because I already know everything" issues.  I once got in an argument with her because she was convinced that she had a lobotomy.

this seems unnecessary for a pregnancy... 

on second thought.....

After a lengthy discussion, we finally figured out she was trying to say "phlebotomy" but even when a dozen people were confirming my definition of the two words, she still wouldn't believe me.  So yanno, maybe she did have a lobotomy.  Or maybe she needs one.   

So the latest issue... she's a veterinary assistant.  She went to school to learn things about working with animals in a vet clinic.  And she is working in a vet clinic.  Somehow she has never heard that onions are bad for dogs.  My vet says so, my friend's vet says so, and Muppy projectile-vomits for three days if he gets ahold of food with onions in it.  He turns into the Puke-Me-Poop-You from "Attack of the Killer App" (pretty awful Futurama episode, but that line made me laugh)  But when I said that I can't let Muppy eat anything with onions, Prom Queen goes "oh don't believe all that shit".  Okay, I won't listen to my vet.  Or other vets.  (sidebar - the vet she works for is a pretty nice guy, and he's the only vet in our little podunk town, but he's kind of an idiot.  he has no common sense when it comes to animals.  even with Prom Queen working at the vet clinic, Buffalo Bill calls the vet in the next town over whenever he needs anything done with our livestock.  go figure) 

She drives me nuts.  I mean she's only 25 and yet she's convinced she knows everything.  She seriously still acts like a high schooler. 

Marriage is one of the leading causes of divorce

I promised a couple posts ago that I would explain my "ex-husband"

Many moons ago, long before Designated Hitter and I were even dating (although we were sleeping together once in a while... don't ask) I met this guy, Opie.  He and I hit it off from day one

except we don't actually have shared jewelry

 

And we were inseparable for the 6 months I lived in that city.  (I moved 12 times in 6 years... no I'm not in the military)  We both have a similar sense of humor, we are both science nerds, and we just like hanging out together.

Opie gives the best back rubs this side of a spa.  Topless back rubs.  But topless back rubs were the absolute most sexual thing we ever did.  I'm kinda thinking I've never even kissed the guy on the mouth.  However, after we were no longer living in the same town, we started spending the night at each other's places when we'd visit... I had a queen size bed and when he was staying with me we'd both sleep in the same bed.  Non-sexual.  Possibly topless, but non-sexual.  One time I even got a pantsless back rub.  I don't know.  So the running joke became that we were husband and wife, because we did lots of things together and even slept in the same bed but we didn't have sex.  Which is like marriage.  Sort of.  Cliche marriage anyway.  Also, my real marriage, but that's another show.

Then Opie moved far far away, and I started dating Designated Hitter.  So the running joke became that we were then divorced.  Which went on for quite a while.  And became hilarious when one of his ex-girlfriends had a friend spy on him and I was over at his house one night and then the ex-girlfriend was all "soooo... who was at your house last night?" and he was all "my ex-wife" and she blew a gasket "YOU NEVER TOLD ME YOU WERE MARRIED BEFORE!" and it was funny.

And now I've started calling him my boyfriend to a few people... because I normally only see him when Hitter is out of town.  Not because I'm cheating, but just because I have a lot more free time when the hubby isn't around monopolizing all my me-time.  So, Hitter goes out of town and I go over to my boyfriend's house.  Nice, huh?

This was kind of a terrible description.  It's way oversimplified, and doesn't do our friendship justice at all.  But this is supposed to be a funny blog so whatever.  Also I suck at being serious.  

Randomly unrelated: It seems that the Prom Queen has moved back into Buffalo Bill's house.  Like two weeks ago, and nobody told me.  *sigh*  I have mixed emotions.  My heart is glad they seem to be working things out, but my head just wonders how long it will last this time and if they're really fixing the issues or if they're just ignoring them.  Oh well, not my problem.  I mean kind of my problem, considering they're my family and all, but it's not directly my problem so I should just let it be.

With any luck this may be the end of the family insanity, at least as it relates to blog posts.  Let the hilarity and mayhem commence!  I need more breakfast-sugar.

Guano in my Belfry

Yep, I'm bat-shit crazy.  But so is everyone else, so it evens out. 

I apparently got a good night's sleep last night... for all of 5.5 hours.  Seriously, I'm less hypochondriac now than I have been in at least two weeks.  I need a massage though, my shoulders and the back of my head are pretty much twitching.

A brief rundown of all the insanity I am exposed to:

1. My family.  Same Shit Different Day.  Buffalo and the Prom Queen are still dating, and are apparently going on a vacation together.  Drinker and Flake still think this is all about them.  And Prima Donna and the Corporal still think they rule the roost.  To add insult to injury, they were given an honor in our little podunky town by other non-related people so they have even had a GROWTH in ego.  Just what they need.  (the insult and injury are to the rest of us, it really is an honor for them that I would have been excited about if it had been before now)

2. The wildlife.  Apparently the skunk moved out the day we set the traps, so we have caught no skunks.  Then my crazy trailer neighbor shot the groundhog, so I paid for traps to catch a non-existent animal.  Although something has dug out the groundhog hole again.  I'm thinking Quikrete down the hole.  And poison. Probably poison first, then Quikrete.

3. Fuck, there was supposed to be something else here but I forgot.  I'll get back to you. 

 4. Company.  Actually they aren't so insane.  Well, the first half of them anyway.  This weekend is high school girls weekend which isn't nearly as pedophile as it sounds.  Friends of mine who I went to high school with.  Not girls who are currently in high school!  We're going to drink a lot.  It will be fun.  I hope I don't die.  But as soon as they leave, Bran Flake is showing up.  Possibly meeting them in the driveway...  She and I usually have fun on our Mother-Daughter vacations, but that was before my family turned into a complete clusterfuck.  So.... yay? 

I should be cleaning the house to get ready for girls weekend.  Scratch that, I should be painting!  But so far in the last two days, I have a) picked blueberries, b) gone shopping (to Home Depot, but that counts, right?), c) taken a nap, d) gone out to supper with my ex-husband* and then went to his house for a couple hours, e) watched two movies, f) made slushie drinks (okay those are for girls weekend.  I'm making margarita slushes, bourbon slushes, and sloe gin slushes.  and possibly fruity margarita slushes too, the first batch was lime), and g) I am now heading out to the pool.  Umm, maybe I should mow first.  Although it's damned hot out (check local listings) so maybe I should procrastinate that just a little longer... till like 8:00 tonight.

I put the PRO in procrastinate.

If you are fully aware of the fact that you're crazy, does that mean you aren't really crazy?

*I don't really have an ex-husband.  I'm sure I'll explain that whole story another time.  

Bodies are for hookers and fat people

I am one of those but not both.  (Also, yay!  Bender quote!)

Yep, it's time for another installment of I-am-definitely-related-to-Buffalo-Bill (my brother, not the real Buffalo Bill)

We both have our "drug of choice".  His has always been alcohol, mine was food.  He learned how to be a common drunk from the Designated Drinker, I learned how to have an eating disorder from Bran Flake.  He has gotten into a whole lot of trouble over the years.  I weigh about 4 metric tons.

Actually the only reason I haven't gotten into a lot of trouble is because the following are not illegal:
1. minors to possess food
2. overeating in public
3. driving while eating

(yes, Buffalo has been arrested on all three of those alcohol counts, with a repeat on #3)

Also, I wanted to insert a picture here, but every time I attempted it I ended up with an image of me waving a donut in a police officer's face.  Somehow that wasn't working for me.  And I don't even like donuts.  One donut-free attempt had me being handcuffed with ketchup dripping off my chin, but I don't like ketchup either.  Weird.  Plus it looked like blood.  

Anyway, Buffalo told me a couple weeks ago he's quit drinking.  I don't know if he 100% quit or if it was just a mood (cuz in the same conversation he told me he was definitely divorcing the Prom Queen and he didn't love her... that all changed within 2 weeks) but he is at least recognizing his problem and making an attempt to overcome it.  *update from the future: apparently it was a mood.  We took beers to the pool this weekend after our grandma's funeral.  But he didn't get stupid.  Also, what kind of weird damned family has beer and pizza after a funeral?!?  Sometimes I do like my family.  We put the "fun" in funeral.

You can't quit food.  Well, I suppose I could try to convince a doctor that I need to get my nourishment from an IV drip

but I don't like doctors enough to even bother talking to one, much less attempt such a stupid request.  But I have been making great strides in recovering from a lifetime of disordered eating.

Anyway I've actually started to make some progress.  I've dropped about 12 lbs in the past 2 months.  No diets, no counting points or fat grams or carbs, no weird combinations of foods, no crazy exercise plans.  Just a shift in mental outlook and attitude.

Why I felt like revealing that now, I'm not quite sure.  But I did.  Maybe because I'm starting to notice a bit of a change in myself but no one else is noticing yet.  And my 5 year old cousin asked me yesterday why I was big around my waist.  *sigh*

There is a whole lot more to this, lots of introspection and psychoanalysis and soul-baring.  You know, boring stuff that is not even interesting to me. 

But now I must go to a funeral.  The fun just goes on and on!

You are part of the Rebel Alliance and a traitor

Back in my late-teens, there was a guy I was interested in.  He was into the rodeo thing and one time during our senior year he lassoed me in the high school parking lot.  Let's call him Roper.  Some day I may tell the whole Roper story but it's way too long to go into right now.  Anyway, after a year and a half of alternatingly one of us wanting the other but the other being unavailable, we were finally single at the same time.  We made plans to go out on a first date together.  I made the mistake of admitting to Designated Drinker and Bran Flake who I was going out with that night (it was after I had moved out to go to college, but was back home over Thanksgiving) and I am not even kidding you they sat me down and said that they didn't want me to go out with him because afterward I would leave the state again and leave them at home to have to deal with how it would look to everyone else in town.  Seriously.  This guy wasn't a serial killer, his family was normal, no criminals or dirt bags or anything.  Just another normal small-town farming family.  Roper and I were just planning to go to dinner and then go home. 

How did I respond to this attitude from them? I told Roper to find a dirt road and

for 3 hours.

And it was good.  And we did it again over Christmas break.  Twice.  We never did really "date" in the sense of being in a relationship.  We just had a one night stand, in triplicate.

I have thousands of other stories of how I rebelled against them, but that one's my favorite.   Buffalo Bill also has the same rebellious attitude... whenever the parental unit pushes either of us, we push back.  And now we have gotten so used to pushing back, that we do it with others too.  As I mentioned a couple posts ago, Buffalo Bill and Prom Queen are currently separated.  One of the big problems they have is that she is extremely needy and insecure.  He will be out working on the farm, and she will call him on his phone like every 15 minutes "Where are you?  What are you doing?  Who else is there?  Why aren't you back inside yet?  It only took you an hour yesterday to do this, why is it taking you an hour and a half today?  You need to hurry up and get back in here, I don't trust you.  Are you SURE there isn't anyone else out there with you?  Are you REALLY still on the farm?"  And how did Buffalo respond to this pressure?  By leaving the farm and finding himself a female friend.

I was telling Designated Hitter about all this the other night (the part about my brother, not the part about Roper) and when I commented on Buffalo Bill's rebellion to Prom Queen's pressure, Designated Hitter goes "wow you two really are related!"  Not that I've ever cheated, but he is fully aware that I don't take well to being told what to do. 

This post ended up a lot more about sex than I thought it would!  This was just an intro to my deviant ways... there will be more coming in the future.

Insanity is a state of mind

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.

Meet the Fockers

I wish my family was the Fockers, we're way more messed up.

Real quick intro to the characters who will appear frequently:

1. My li'l bro, Buffalo Bill.  He's a cowboy at heart, and a wild man all over.
2. My dad, Designated Drinker.  One more internet acronym gone awry.  DD=Dear Dad, Designated Driver, or in this case... drinker.
3. My mom, Bran Flake.  It's a long story, and special thanks to Best Friend (seriously, you want a name too?) for getting me 3/4 of the way to this nickname.
4. Grandma and Grandpa are Prima Donna and The Corporal.  These are explained in the post immediately following this one.
5. Buffalo Bill's wife is the Prom Queen.  She's eternally stuck in high school.