The Screamin' Baby Express

It's difficult to piece together a post about my experiences this past Memorial Day weekend visiting my parents in Florida in a cohesive kind of a story that has a beginning, a middle and an end. In the first paragraph (which you are now reading, in case you didn't notice) I will start off by telling you that I love my parents very, very much, which will pretty much guarantee you that I will spend the rest of this blog post trashing them and the god forsaken place in which they have chosen to live out their golden years.

Mostly I will be trashing my mom as she is for some reason way more irritating than my dad.

To balance things out however, I'll go ahead and say some shitty things about my dad. His list is longer, but my mom is still more annoying.
1. He is a right wing, wing-nut who believes every right wing wing-nut email anyone sends him.
2. He calls Barack Obama, "Osama" or "That dirty Muslim".
3. He distrusts all Mexicans and thinks that all women who golf are lesbians.
4. He has driven his golf cart through the garage screen door 3 times.
5. He backed over my mom in the driveway with his SUV.
6. He is meticulous about the cleanliness of his garage and now the bird cage thingy that covers their back yard pool and mercilously smashes lizards and frogs who enter these domains with a broom handle. The frogs and lizards don't enter with a broom handle. He smashes them with a broom handle.

And now on with the functioning alcholic portion of my blog post.

Since they have moved away to Florida and I only see them once or twice a year, all my visits with my parents start off the same way, jubilant and full of loving hugs and kisses, which I enjoy very much. Then comes the small talk, peppered with expressions of so-glad-to-see-you-ness and pats on the arm or knee. Then the drinking starts. My dad or mom will pour themselves a scotch and offer one to MDH, who graciously accepts.

I hate scotch so my mom will list off other available beverages and point me in the direction of the fridge to fix it myself. I might have one drink and the drinks I make myself are typically pretty weak. I'm just not a big drinker and end up drinking sodas all night.

The rest of the evening and subsequent evenings which begin earlier and earlier each day, pan out pretty much the same. Scotch, scotch, scotch. Drunk, drunk, drunk. At first it's kind of fun, but then it begins to wear.

My parents have always had lots of friends, and have always been heavy drinkers. When my sister and I were little the party was always at our house. My sister and I would entertain the children of their friends in the playroom in our basement while upstairs the grown ups drank, smoked and played cards all night. They had a special fridge that was always stocked with beer in case people stopped over, and people always stopped over.

When my father called my mother in the evenings to see if she needed him to pick up anything on his way home from work, it was never milk or eggs that she needed. She'd tell him that we were almost out of beer and he'd bring home a 12-pack.

Now that I'm thinking of these things, I'm reminded that my little sister's first word was "beer". No kidding.

I don't know when they made the leap from beer to scotch. They still keep the party fridge stocked with beer, but they seem to have switched exclusively to scotch. In the four nights we spent with them I watched the two of them go through about half a liter every evening. It scared me. They got sloshy, sloppy drunk and I don't remember things ever being quite this bad. Maybe it's just more noticeable since I don't see them very often. Not to be a bummer or anything, but it was upsetting. So upsetting in fact that I'm trying to figure out how to or whether or not to say something to them about it. They are clearly out of control.

Also upsetting... going to the movies in The Villages. Although my folks opted out of going to the movies with us, and for those of you who read the previous post, they actually treated us like high-schoolers and not middle-schoolers and let us borrow their car and have an evening out alone. They may as well have come along because it was like they were with us anyway as everyone in The Villages is exactly alike; old and WASP'y. Even the Jews that live there are WASP'y and there are no brown people, other than those WASP'y persons who have acquired leathery tans. It's creepy. Like Stepford for fogies.

Anyhoo...Imagine a sold out movie theater, crowded with row after row of your annoying, elderly parents.

It's difficult to describe that particular kind of shrill squawking and slow moving pace, but I have never seen such a fuss over finding a seat at a movie theater (or theatre to satisfy those with a discerning vocabulary - I'm talking to you Step Right Up). Wake up white people! Sit down and shut the hell up before I grab that four-pronged cane and shove it up your flabby ass. Sit down already. Four pronger.

The lady who finally stopped squawking and sat next to me, looked exactly like my mother and every other Villager woman. Tanned with short salt and pepper frosted hair, khaki or white Bermuda length pleated shorts and a fluorescent hued t-shirt with a sparkly, tropical-themed appliqué. Shit brown Naturalizer sandals with over sized stitching. With or without socks.

This woman, who was not my mother, hummed all though the trailers and film, just like my mother. What's up with moms and all the goddamned humming? Does your mother hum? My mom does. It's irritating right? I wanted to shush this lady, but she reminded me too much of my mother and it didn't feel right. I usually say something asshole-ishly passive aggressive to my mother when she hums like, "Did you say something? I didn't hear you. I was trying to listen to this song."

The Memorial Day visit ended only scant moments before I lost my mind completely, although it was a close call when I got into a 15 minute argument with my mother during dinner on Monday night over the pronunciation of Bethesda. Yes. The city in Maryland. She kept calling it Bethesda-la. I do not know how the subject came up, but I said the same of the city and my mother corrected me.

Me: Something, something, Bethesda.

Mom: Bethesda-la.

Me: No Mom, it's Bethesda.

Mom: Bethesda-la.

Me: I'm pretty sure Mom. It's Bethesda.

Mom: No honey. (Louder) It's Beth-ES-Da-La.

Me: It doesn't matter how slow and loud you say it Mom. It's still Bethesda.

Mom: Bethesda-LA

Me: I got it. You're wrong.

And so on... I'm glad to be home, where everyone is sober, nobody hums and I am always right and don't have to feel guilty about it.

In order to get here we had to take a flight from Orlando. Any flight going anywhere from Orlando Florida is hereby referred to as The Screamin' Baby Express. Unfortunately no one is too short to ride this ride. It's filled to the brim with tired little monsters of all ages, shapes and sizes. They are cranky, dirty and disappointed little loud mouthed shits. The children suck too.

Seriously, who are you assholes that just let your kids scream and scream and scream on an airplane?

0.0 Miles from Crazy

MDH and I will be off visiting my folks this weekend. We visit every year on Memorial Day weekend, and usually squeeze in a couple of days away by ourselves at Disney World or something, but this year we decided to spend the entire time with my parents.

What the fuck were we thinking?

My parents are lovely people. Truly, they are. If you were to meet them you'd say my god, what lovely people! And you'd be right, they are wonderful and amazing and I am lucky to have been raised by two such as they, but after about 2 days they will annoy the living shit out of me.

We aren't even there yet and it has taken 4 days of negotiations via email and phone calls to make plans for MDH and I to go to the movies on Saturday afternoon. It has been decided that since my mother doesn't want to see the movie and my father thinks that the sound systems in modern movie theaters are too loud that MDH and I will go to the movies by ourselves. Thank you baby Jeebus.

Meanwhile since the movie theater is too far away to go by golf cart and they are paranoid about anyone driving their car, they have decided that it is no trouble at all for them to drive us to the movies and then pick us up when the movie is over. Like we're in middle school over here.

After 5 days trapped in The Villages with my folks don't be shocked if you see me and MDH on the news flying down the freeway a la OJ Simpson, back to Orlando in a stolen golf cart. That's just a joke. I'm not planning to stab anyone.

Wish me drunk, I mean luck.

A Ramblin' Post About My Whacked Out Granny

I spent half my weekend crying with one orifice or another of mine aimed over the toilet bowl and now I've caught some kind of head cold. I feel OK. I'm a little sneezy and snotty, and I've got a bit of a headache and even though I'm not feeling that great myself, I'm still taking care of MDH who has started to recover from his own rotten head cold.

When I'm sick I'd much rather be left alone than pampered. Today's story is inspired by bad childhood memories and attempts made by well meaning, but misguided adults, namely my grandma, to pamper or take care of me.

Get ready for some father and grandmother bashing and exaggerations. Yes. Grandmother. Bashing.

Hold tight, I speak (mostly) the truth!

My mother was always too busy to fuss over me the way that I perceived of other mothers doing. I got what I needed, but she didn't fuss. She worked a full time job, took care of a special needs daughter (my sister) and took care of everything having to do with our household.

My dad, on the other hand, did nothing. Unless you count drink beer, lord over the television and golf. It was a different generation and back then men were only required to earn a paycheck and their household and child rearing responsibilities were considered fulfilled. Dad was basically useless and not to be relied upon for fussing or pampering.

The only time I was ever pampered and fussed over was when my grandma stayed with us and I didn't much like it.

I always had the feeling that she was only being so nice to me so that she could stick it to my mom, as if to say "Watch this, Unworthy Daughter-In-Law - If only you weren't so busy setting the accounting world on fire, you could stay home and take care of this poor, neglected child properly."

Grandma didn't approve of women who had careers.

Grandma never listened to me and always got me all wrong too. Like the time I spilled orange juice down the front of myself as I was rushing out the door for school. I was in the 4th grade. Grandma happened to be on the phone with my mother at the time, who was at work. "Oh Dear God - I've got to hang up!", she yelled, "Lady has just vomited!" Then Grandma grabbed me and ripped off my shirt and told me there was no way I was going to school.

When I told her that I'd only spilled the juice, she thought I was lying and made me stay home.

It might sound like a good gig, but it wasn't. I would rather have gone to school than have stayed home with my grandmother watching game shows and soap operas all day long. She wouldn't let me eat anything all day either for fear that I would throw it back up again and periodically she tried to take my temperature with the old fashioned kind of thermometer.

Yeah.

When my mother got home from work I complained to her that I wasn't sick at all and had been held hostage, starved, tortured with bad TV and subjected to fighting off regular attempts at anal probes. She understood my dilemma, but was unable to do anything about it because apparently nobody ever questioned the wisdom and authority of my grandmother.

I didn't understand the full extent of my family's support and blind loyalty to my grandmother until I was a teenager and my mother went on a week long, ladies only vacation with a couple of my aunts.

Since my father was completely useless in the household and child care department, he took the week off work to stay with my sister and me while my mother was away, because apparently working all day and taking care of children when he got home was way more than he could handle.

It wasn't even like it was summer time - we were in school all day.

So incompetent was he, that merely taking time off work was not enough. He called my grandmother to come and help him out during his time of need. I begged him not to and argued that I was 15 and old enough to take care of all three of us while Mom was away. It was no use.

It was one of the most miserable weeks of my life which started off with a lecture from my dad in which he basically said, "Do everything your grandmother tells you to do - AND NO LIP!"

The madness began almost immediately when my sister asked for macaroni and cheese for dinner. My sister had some pretty significant speech problems and my grandmother never seemed to understand what she was saying. My frustrated sister went to the pantry, grabbed a box of Mac & Cheese and handed it to my grandmother.

Grandma correctly took this to mean that my sister was hungry, but refused to make food from a box as requested by a child, so my sister watched in horror as Grandma threw the Mac & Cheese in the trash and made instead something from scratch that our dad liked called SOS. AKA "Shit on a Shingle", which is essentially flour gravy with ground beef served on toast.

It is every bit as disgusting as it sounds and my sister and I hated it.

In my grandmother's world men ruled supreme, especially the ones she had given birth to, and children should be seen and not heard. Especially girl children. I hated her.

My sister and I both got in trouble with our dad because we refused to eat the SOS. Apparently not eating it would hurt grandma’s feelings so he forced us to choke it down. Now I hated him too.

My grandmother and I had a complicated relationship. I didn't really hate her. I loved her, but I certainly didn't understand her.

The best way I can put it into perspective is to say that if you've ever seen the movie Coal Miner's Daughter, my father's family lived in the the next holler over from where that movie took place, the rural, coal mining Kentucky of the first half of the 20th century. My grandfather, grandma's first husband, wore overalls with a straw hat, mined coal and in his spare time made corn whiskey in a bathtub still he hid in the woods behind their house. Like the perfect caricature of a hillbilly, he smoked a corn cob pipe.

Grandma didn't understand me either. She was concerned that I wasn't interested enough in boys or getting married and thought I spent way too much time reading. She thought I was "uppity" and warned my parents, when I expressed an interest in going to college that I was "gettin' above my raisin". I never let her find out that I didn't believe in God. It would have killed her.

Anyhoo... let's get back to the week my mom left my sister and me alone for an entire week with my grandmother and my dad, AKA the Hillbilly Mutual Admiration Society.

OK, so we had to eat food we didn't like, and do chores that we didn't normally have to do while Dad and Grandma laid around all day watching soap operas and game shows. Unpleasant yes, but totally survivable.

Then I stepped on a broken Coke bottle in the garage and sliced the bottom of my foot open and my grandmother tried to kill me with my father's blessing.

Why I was barefoot in the garage and how a broken bottle got there I don't remember, but suffice it to say that it was a deep gash of the won't stop bleeding variety. It hurt too.

Still, in hindsight, I probably should have kept my stupid mouth shut, knowing that under the circumstances I was going to be subjected to my grandmother's favorite backwoods remedy and answer to all problems of the open wound variety - Campho Phenique.

Under normal circumstances and had my mother been home I probably would have gone to the hospital and gotten stitches.

Instead, I squeezed my father's hand off while my grandmother doused my deep open wound with liquid camphor. It was all so very World War One in the trenches. I was surprised they didn't just pour moonshine on it and cut my foot off at the knee with a hacksaw while I chewed on a leather strap.

Needless to say the cut didn't heal. Not only didn't it heal, but I developed a fever and my foot swelled to gangrenous and pus-dripping proportions so large that I was not able to put on a shoe - thereby not able to go to school. Meaning I had to stay home all day, tolerating the painful, periodic reapplication of the Campho Phenique and eating left over SOS with the two people at the top of my teenage shit list.

At one point I pulled my dad off to the side and tried to reason with him. "Dad, I think my foot is infected and Grandma just keeps putting Campho Phenique on it. I think I need stitches and a prescription for antibiotics." But he was too far under her spell. "Shhhh! Don't let yer Grandma hear you talkin' like that", he whispered. "That'll hurt her feelings. Besides she raised 15 children to grown. She knows what she's doing."

Of course common sense, reason and penicillin replaced folk wisdom and Civil War era camphor poultices when my mom returned home. I was whisked to the doctor and cared for properly, given stitches and antibiotics.

In yer face batty old woman.

I still have the scar on the bottom of my foot.

So there you go... this big long gripe about my grandmother to explain why I do not like to be fussed over.

I can take care of myself just fine thank you and stay the hell away from me with that Vick's Vapo Rub.