A longish rant about the RhymerClan and why I need a female Doper to hit my sister with the clue stick, as Rule 7 forbids my committing violence against women.
First some background. As some of you know, I married with three kids: a three-year-old daughter and twin twenty-month-old sons. As anybody withg children that age can tell you, no matter how much you love them you periodically need to get away from them for the sake of your own sanity, particularly if you’re a stay-at-home parent like my wife. Consequently the two of us decided to take a little mini-vacation, in which we’d check into a hotel Friday night and come home Sunday morning. This obviously required a babysitter. That in mind, I called my favorite niece, Lisel the Magnificent who is in her early 20s and home from graduate school for the next few week, to see if she wanted to earn some extra money. Her mother–my sister Juanita–answered the phone (my niece’s cell, which I should have taken as a warning) and said that while Lisel the Magnificent was busy, she, Tammy, would be happy to sit for us, take the money, and give it to LtM.
Friday evening. Juanita came over and took up residence in the guest room; my wife and I went to the Peabody. My wife got drunk as a skunk; I did not, because I got that great big stick up my ass. We enjoyed one another’s company in ways probably still illegal in Texas, and on Saturday roamed around downtown Memphis stirring up shit for no real reason and are now banned from two separate barbecue joints. Sunday morning we came home, gave Juanita the money to pass on to Lisel the Magnificent, and resumed custody of our kids.
Shortly after Juanita left, we started noticing some little things. I couldn’t find my favorite oven mitt, for starters, the only one that fits comfortably over my troll-like mitts. For another, all our towels were missing, or rather replaced. There were still more than enough to go around: just none of the ones my wife & I have purchased over the years. And the baking supplies and equipment – ordinarily the highest shelf–had ben moved. And finally, there was a television in my daughters’ rooms: not ordinarily the case. The one in the boys’ room was new; the one in my daughter’s room: the one Juanita gave her when she was about 12 months, which we’d never put up and had been sitting in the master bedroom closet for since then.
So I called Juanita. “Nee-Nee?” I said. “Did you get rid of our towels for some reason?”
“Yep,” she said. “Got y’all some new ones from Macy’s. The ones y’all had were ratty.”
“No they weren’t. The oldest of them was younger than the boys, and the majority were a year or less old.”
“Yeah, but they were ugly, and they weren’t made from all natural materials. The ones I bought were way prettier and all-natural. You’re welcome.”
“I didn’t say thank you,” I said. “So I presume you also rearranged the pantry.”
“Yep. The mixer and all the other baking stuff were way too high for your wife to reach.”
“That’s on purpose. She hates baking. I am the only one who bakes. The stuff she uses is supposed to be on the shelves she can reach without a stepladder.”
“It needs to be lower down so she can reach it. And you need to teach her how to bake. Wives should bake, that’s how you keep a husband.”
“And you put the TV up to?”
“Yep,” Juanita said. “Should have been up years ago. You were wasting my money, but I forgive you.”
“One last question. Have you lost your goddamn mind?”
“What? Why are you cursing at me?”
“Because you came into my house and rearranged things without asking, without considering how things work here–”
“Because you don’t know how to run a household. I was trying to help you, boy?”
“No, you were being a controlling pscyho hosebeast,” I said. “I mean that in the most insulting way possible.”
“You’re a jerk,” Juanita said.
In an unSkaldian display of common sense, I hung up the phone at that juncture, mightily missing the days when phones were big and sturdy and could be slammed down satisfactorily. Then I took the family to dinner. We went out because Juanita had also thrown out the pork I’d envisioned cooking that night. She’s on some insane health food kick and doesn’t consume any processed food. Luckily she had not touched my salad fixings or I’d have been forced to do something violent to her car.
:mad:
(And no, I did not intend this for the Pit. I don’t open Pit threads as a matter of policy.)
