Giving Thanks
In the spirit of goodwill and family, I agreed to Thanksgiving dinner at my grandparents home and spending time with my grandmother, grandfather, dad, aunt, cousin, and three second cousins.
I am thankful that Thanksgiving comes but once a year.
When I arrived, I was welcomed by Sam(antha) (second cousin), my grandfather (Dale), my dad, and Diane (my aunt also know as Toni for some reason from her high school days). They admired my car and we headed inside to where the food was close to being served.
I spent 5 1/2 hours with my family before I leave, before I NEEDED to leave for the sake of not shooting my mouth off and thus destroying any hope of family members speaking to me again.
Here are a few of the conversations and events of the day:
My sixteen-year old gansta-wanna-be second cousin, Aaron, needs a boot to the head. I haven't seen him in 5 years and my first thought was, EAT SOMETHING! He's skinnier than a rail but hides the Holocaust victim figure with baggy clothing. He was wearing a pink shirt that came down to his knees and the waist band of his pants started where the shirt left off.
During dinner, I watched as Aaron ate two things. He ate a piece of bread and a piece of turkey. He put ketchup on both. This is DIS-GUST-ING! That's my opinion though. Now I understand why the waitress at Perkin's tried to give me ketchup for my turkey and dressing meal. Some people need it I guess.
His adventures shared with the table all seemed to involve his friend, Chris, who works at Papa John's. I know that Chris works at Papa John's because Aaron made sure to tell us this fact 5 times in two minutes.
Aaron explained that he likes only going to school for two hours a day. Diane pointed out that it's not really school, it's a "program" for special juvenile delinquents such as Aaron. Here's the conversation I had with Aaron about this:
A: Well, I like this situation more.
B: Why are you in an alternative learning environment?
A: Because I skipped a lot.
B: Why?
A: Because I didn't like school.
B: What was wrong with it?
A: People were always telling me what to do.
B: And that's different from life, HOW?
A: I don't need THE MAN keeping me down.
B: Do people still actually say, "THE MAN?"
A: Hey, I'm rebelling.
B: From what?
A: I don't want to be a nerd.
B: You do realize the world is run by nerds, right?
A: Yeah.
B: So you're either going to work for a nerd or be unemployed.
A: But I live at grandma's (Diane's house).
B: Are you going to live there for the rest of your life?
A: I might get a job at Papa John's, they've got good pizza.
B: [Blinking in utter disbelief.] What is actually wrong with your life that you need to give up all ambition at age 16?
A: [Silence.]
Sam (his sister): Aaron, you're going to be in high school forever.
A: They only let you go until you're 21.
B: Wait a minute, you've actually researched this enough to know how long a school will try before they abandon all hope?
A: I read it in a brochure.
S: You read something?
I've got to hand it to the 11 year old. She's good at driving him insane.
Later, Aaron described himself as a "wigger." I came extremely close to slapping him. His mother did nothing. I was at least proud of my dad and Diane for not actually knowing what this term meant.
Traci (my cousin and the mother and Diane's daughter) expressed her beliefs today. She believes in NASCAR, reality TV, and that it's okay to "diss" minority groups but not elderly people.
Alex and Sam (they're fraternal twins) said grace before the meal. I will admit, I'm not religious. Neither are my grandparents, my aunt, or my father. I remember being forced to say grace as a child and it always consisted of, "Bless this food." That's it.
Here's the speech Sam gave and then Alex added to:
"Lord, thank you for this meal we are about to receive. Bless the people at this table and make sure everyone gets home safely. Please save all of us at this table."
And Alex added:
"And bless our troops, bring them home safely and victorious."
I wanted to add, "And also bless those who we're fighting against since we're all actually human beings and maybe hating a group of people blindly is not a good idea." But again, I kept my mouth shut.
We ate dry turkey and my grandmother's fruit salad. Now, I do like the salad and I was pleased to see it instead of the other dish she tends to make. I don't know which culture started the tradition of Jell-O and marshmallows, but it's kind of strange. One year she made lime Jell-O and put carrots in it. It jiggled and crunched. No one really took seconds.
Traci brought up the Escalade vehicle. Then she commented, "Last week I was surprised to see white people driving it. White, old people."
To which my grandmother replied, "Excuse me?"
"Oh, sorry, just white people. I'm sorry about the old comment."
WHAT THE **** WAS THAT?
My dad gave the family the quiz I shared last week. My aunt Diane also got it correct. My dad, her, and I were all proud of being considered psychopaths and then we had our own conversations. We also discussed the Donner party (traveler's trapped in the mountains over the winter with no food who ended up resorting to cannibalism). In relaying the story to my mom, she said, "You know, the last time I heard about the Donner party, your aunt and your dad were in the room."
My grandfather shared a story (which I've come to realize his stories make absolutely no sense at all) to Traci. He said, "When your uncle Terry got shot in the lung, he went to Mr. Six." Then he asked, "Do you know who Mr. Six married?"
My dad and I both replied, "Ms. Seven?"
We were wrong. But we were also trying to figure out when my dad got shot in the lung. (My dad is Terry.) As it turns out, it wasn't my dad, it was my grandfather's brother, Jimmy. The odd thing is, Uncle Jimmy was not Traci's uncle. He was Diane and my dad's uncle.
Then we were shown pictures of the Golden Grandchild and his family. For some random reason, my cousin Matt is revered above all else because he knocked up his girlfriend twice before they got married. And he delivered pizzas for a long time. If I had to pick, I'd pick his brother, Chris, as the Golden Grandchild. Chris graduated college, moved out on his own, and acts like a responsible adult. But then, Chris has a medical problem and so my grandmother thinks he's fat because the medication causes problems with his body.
Funny story about Matt. When his girlfriend was pregnant, he finally told any member of the family when she was 8 months pregnant. The child arrived early and so the entire family had two weeks to prepare. My grandfather called saying it was a shocker to learn the news so late and I wanted to freak them out. I told my grandfather my baby was sleeping upstairs. I'm an evil person sometimes.
I finally decided it was time to go when my grandmother announced that blacks and Hispanics shouldn't be allowed to drive. My response was, "I have to go to my mom's. Bye."
Oh, and Alex, who lives in Iowa, seems to have a Tennessee accent. And she doesn't seem to care about proper grammar either. I heard a lot of, "I gots" and "Me and so-and-so"s.
My dad said something pretty good later in the evening when I stopped by his house to pick something up. He said (and he told my grandfather this when discussing my grandmother's 35+ year silent treatment to her sister), "Family is family. Whatever happens, get over it. If you think you're better than they are, be the better person and apologize." This is why I keep my mouth shut around my family. If I didn't, they'd probably ban me from their little circle, even if I only choose to visit it twice a year.
5 Comments:
At 11:36 AM, CarpeDM said...
Oh, good Lord. I'm glad you only do this twice a year. This is crazy. Your message last night makes so much sense now (not that I hadn't figured it was an ordeal but this clears up why that sound of desperation was in your voice), I listened to it this morning.
I don't understand about the whole Golden Grandchild thing. If Chris isn't the Golden Grandchild because he's fat (did I seriously read that correctly?), why aren't you the Golden Grandchild? You are finishing college, moved out on your own and just bought a new car (shiny, pretty car). I'm not going to mention the mature adult thing because I'm pretty sure you've been a mature adult since you were 2. Why aren't you Golden? Silly grandparents.
At 12:34 PM, The Lioness said...
Good grief, this was more than a bit scary and i got more than a bit lost but - you poor thing! I would never have been able to keep my big mouth shut, I envy your self-control! What's a wigger?
My favourite pearls: "S: You read something?"; "For some random reason, my cousin Matt is revered above all else because he knocked up his girlfriend twice before they got married"
At 12:36 PM, The Lioness said...
Oh, you know what you and DM NEED to do??? An audio blog! Pretty please??? PLEASE!!! I can't bcs it's not international yet but you can and u should! I need to hear your voices, how cool that would be! It's supposed to be really easy. Go on!
At 9:01 PM, CarpeDM said...
I have it set up but I've been chicken to do it. Maybe at karaoke we will record a post/song especially for you. I could get everyone to say hi.
That would be fun.
At 2:37 PM, brooksba said...
Lioness,
I haven't set up Audio blogger at all and maybe I'll try it soon. I hate the sound of my voice though.
The word my idiot cousin used is pretty derogatory. I don't like the word or where it came into the language from.
Dana,
I'm not the Golden Grandchild because of a few reasons:
1. My mom
2. My parent's divorce
3. My dogs
4. I'm not married with 2.5 kids
5. I don't bend over backwards to please my grandparents
6. Did I mention my mom?
That's my dad's side of the family for you. The cool ones are the ones you'd consider psychopaths.
|