So when your family gets together for Christmas is there one odd relative, maybe a country redneck oddball (but loveable) relative that doesnt exactly fit in with the rest of the family?
Or maybe some other odd person?
Or are YOU the odd person in your family?
Probably me.
If I showed up for Christmas it would probably be me.
90% of my family is cousin eddie
We have LOTS of eccentrics. One Cousin Eddie would be a big improvement (or would it?).
We have a CT in our family. He doesn’t come around much and honestly, for a while I’d just kinda heard stories. For how closely related he is, I should be seeing him a minimum of once or twice a year at certain family gatherings…his wife is at all of them.
Anyways, about a year or two ago I hear someone in the next room talking about the Fukushima disaster. Interesting enough topic, more interesting than what was going on where I was so my ears perk up trying to decide if I should head over there…but then I heard him talking about some kind of ‘levels’ there are still ‘really high’, even all the way in the midwest. The conversation turned to something about prescription meds (government trying to control you IIRC) and, I shit you not, he eventually brought up chemtrails.
Glad I didn’t walk into that room and the two people that were in there had the patience of saints to listen to him and nod while he rambled for as long as he did. At the very least most people would have found a reason to politely walk away.
We have Alex. Alex is a prosecuting attorney, and very self-righteous about it. He also drinks too much on the holidays. He is not an alcoholic, because he doesn’t drink when he is working-- he drinks only at holiday gathering, and he doesn’t get falling down drunk, but he does get way past safe-to-drive. And then he monopolizes the conversation over whatever his current obsession is. Sometimes it’s something work-related, like the stupidity of juries, sometimes it’s something I can get on board with, like actors who use their fame to promote pseudo-science (he’s agin’ 'em)-- but good luck getting a word in edgewise.
Fortunately, Alex is usually the last to arrive, and the first to leave, so we get some time without him.
He’s not quite a shmok-- he’s a little more than a putz, though-- something in between. But he’s ours, and we love him.
Now, mind you, if you should lose your job, or face some disaster, like a house fire, Alex would step up with the rest of the family, and lend you money, or give you his car (he trades in every couple of years anyway); he just has some poorly developed social skills when you get interpersonal. Obviously, when he’s facing a jury, he does fine, because his won/loss record is really good. Sometimes I think he’s like an alien who took really detailed and strict classes on how to act human, but he missed just one day.
I don’t miss Alex when he leaves a gathering early, because he has to get back to work, but if something happened to him, I would miss him terribly.
Same here. My mother came from the Ozarks and most of her brothers and sisters stayed in the Ozarks. I have a whole passel of cousins who are Cousin Eddie, including one named Eddie.
Take out the “country redneck” and I still have a buttload of family that still fits the oddball category.
One of my aunts stands out from the rest of the family in that she’s mostly normal. Does that count?
ETA, but missed the window: Alex is my cousin by my mother’s brother and his second wife (his first wife died). He is about 15 years younger than I am. He has a sister who is a year younger. Her name is Tzipporah, but we call her Zira. Zira got ALL the social skills in the family. She can charm anyone. Everyone likes her right away. The way my family is, everyone, including second cousins and my cousins on my father’s side of the family refer to Alex (and Zira) as a “cousin.”
When I was little, the whole extended family lived withing blocks of one another in NYC. I had numerous sets of grandparents. My actual ones, plus my paternal cousins grandparents, and many great-aunts and uncles.
I am definitely the Cousin Eddie in my family, and my husband is the Cousin Eddie in his. But somehow I fit in with his family and he fits in with mine.
Frankly, I’ve always thought that “oddballs” make family get togethers more interesting. Lots of people are too uptight to let their hair down and have fun.
I was the family’s weirdo. Then my youngest brother married a woman whose curriculum is as interesting as mine 
The farthest I’ve been from our little Spanish home town is Argentina; the farthest she’s been, New Zealand.
My family accepts my oddities. (At least I think they do).
Since I do the cooking if they want to eat they better fake it real good!
I think I’m Cousin Eddie. The family is all on the spouse’s side (mine are either gone or too far away to get together with) and they’re all very close-knit, religious, family-oriented, and conservative. I’m a moody liberal introvert who’s pleasant and tries to be a good sport at family gatherings, but since I’m not jazzed about who’s had a baby lately and what’s going on at the church, I usually just hang out on the periphery, respond pleasantly when addressed, and wait for the whole thing to be over.
I’m the Cousin Eddie, I guess. My sister and I only see each other maybe once a year, and I haven’t seen my sister’s kids in years.
Maybe that’s because when her eldest was born, I offered to teach him how to drink beer, smoke cigars, and read the Daily Racing Form when he grew up. I was joking, but I suppose that as a result, I barely know my sister’s kids; even though they are now in their early 20s.
I think that would make you Uncle Charlie, not the much loved goofy Uncle Charlie, the dirty old man Uncle Charlie. I’m (literally) the Uncle Charlie for my SIL and her kids. I didn’t say anything about the Daily Racing Form though, my joke offering was a trip to Nevada for her son when old enough.
My BIL (SIL’s husband) is the Cousin Eddie. The rest of our combined families are perfectly normal.
Combine Dale Gribble’s paranoia with Boomahuer’s speech patterns and you get one of my brothers.
This.
90% of my family are racist, sexist, homophobic, evangelical, fundamentalist trump supporters.
I, on the other hand, am an agnostic, gun-owning, somewhat liberal, anti-republican.
You tell me, am I cousin Eddie?