Family Ties

Sorry for the hiatus. Much on my mind these days.

Will explain later. When Big Brother is not peering over my shoulder.

Be that it may, let’s start with this weekend’s festivities, shall we?

Though only my grandmother is a church-goer, we celebrate the Christian holidays of the year the same as everyone else. Only with possibly less ham because no one in the family likes the taste of cured piggies for supper. Bacon’s cool, though. Anyway. Much smaller family gathering than the comparitive Thanksgiving meal that was full of unnerving displays of animal skins, hunting techniques and the comparing of projectile objects known the redneck-world over as “boolets.”

This gathering was small, only my mother, father, one grandmother my brother (barely) and myself.

My dad is rarely a factor in these gatherings unless there is another male there to compare “boolets” with or gaze at out into the woods surrounding my parents home, making comments in reference to the “good huntin” and “perfect cover” the woods allow the seasoned hunter, such as themselves.

So my father sat, in a quiet and sullen manner, throughout the majority of the pre-Easter lunch, the Easter lunch and the post-Easter lunch.

My brother rolled in less than 30 seconds before we were getting ready to sit down to the traditional meal of Easter dinner where no one says a word except for my grandmother, willing us to volunteer information about our lives in such a manner that she can gather and store away tidbits to hurl, like nuts, at her other busy-body church-lady friends that compare children, grandchildren and the like. Much in the same way that men compare penis size throughout their whole lives. But much more intense. People underestimate the ferocity of grandmothers. They’ll cut you. They will.

Back to my brother. Needless to say, he was not in the most sober of minds. Hell, that’s an understatement. Per usual, he could barely keep his head out of the potato salad. Personally, I was silently rooting for a little entertainment and cannot deny I was not adverse to a little head-in-food action. Granted, the ensuing hell that would have been the rest of the meal would have been enough to break a grown man into tears, so tense would the silence be. But I’ve been surviving these dinners since the dawn of time. I’m immune. (I do feel immensely sorry for anybody my brother or I may bring home in the future, however)

So my brother wobbled and burped and red-faced his way through about half of the meal before escaping into the bathroom to vomit, loudly, from the back bathroom. Very pleasant. Just want I want to hear as I’m eating the now vomit-textured dressing with my turkey. Rock on.

Fastforward 20 minutes. My brother is still retching everything he ever thought about eating into the serenity of the cold blue goddess. Dad has silently risen from his chair at the head of the table and has walked into the living to flip between Chop Shop and basketball.

That leaves my grandmother, my mother and me. Me me me me. All eyes turn to me.

“So I hear you’ve got an interview in Memphis this week,” my grandmother says.

“Yes.”

“What are you going to wear? I don’t think you own anything appropriate for that kind of interview, do you?”

Mentally imaging placing pillow over her face.

“Go get your new suit, Birdie and show your grandmother.”

This is my mother’s attempt at warm and fuzzy family togetherness. This, after failing to have a pleasant and perky daughter and a sober son who, admirably enough, only let the f-word slip out 3 times over dinner.

“mmkay.”

Sulk off to room and take every minute possible to put on new suit and heels. Reapply mascara. Pee. File nails. Straighten bed.

20 minutes later and I walk out into the room. I actually look good in this suit. It fits perfectly (which is rare because the giant boobs and ass make for difficult shopping). It’s a beautiful color on me. It’s perfect. Skims, doesn’t cling. Fabric is lovely and textured.

My grandmother looks at my mother and says “Mother, you’re going to need to get her a girdle to go around her middle. You don’t want that pulling across her waist.”

My blood pressure rises. She’s MY mother you ASS, don’t call her by the title that only her children are entitled to. And IT DOESN’T PULL ACROSS MY MIDDLE.

“Have you put on any weight, Birdie? You know you gain weight in your middle.”

Silence. NO, I HAVE NOT PUT ON WEIGHT. I’VE LOST TEN POUNDS YOU HEINOUS COW. I’LL STAB YOU WITH MY BUTTER KNIFE, I WILL.

I shoot her the most deadly of looks. And still she continues.

“You really need to watch what she buys, Mother,” turning again to talk to my mother as if I have magically disappeared from the room. “You know these young girls think they can wear those belly shirts and whorish clothes when they have too much weight in their middles to look even moderately respectable.”

Oh. My. God.

And my grandmother wonders why I never come to visit.

*All this from a woman of five feet and 275 pounds and a belly the size of the sahara resting beneath her clothes. Please, tell me I'm a fat cow again. I dare you.