walkingman

On August 1st, just as predictable as the return of the swallows to Capistrano or Santa on Christmas Day, certain crazy relatives of mine come to town. Every year as August dawns they seem to appear in their old rust bucket of a car held together with bondo and duct tape in my driveway on their way out west or down south to Mickey Mouse land. We are the first of many relative bed and breakfasts they have routinely used over the years on their annual trek to get their ears on. Each year it seems that there are more offspring, more spouses, and more grandkids. Yet there is only that one station wagon. Do not know how they do it but there are aunt, uncle, cousins, cousin-in-laws, second cousins, and who knows what else you call them. There are just a hell of a lot of people in that clan. These are some of my carnivore relatives and so to feed them we bbq. It is easy to get one of my male relatives to take over burning the dead flesh and they relish that role. My cousin Curtis related a story about how he was having problems with a groundhog and told his brother-in-law Danny who volunteered to trap it for him. My uncle Ed said that he would trap it instead of Danny because Danny liked to eat squirrel, rabbit, and gopher and might take the groundhog home with him. Ed would take it to a forest preserve and release it. Well it turns out that Danny got it first and did make it into a stew. He confirmed the story as he wiped bbq sauce from his fingers all over his tee shirt. My poor wife had to leave the table as she turned quite pale. It is so wonderful to have hillbillies as relatives. I am sure they think we are crazy hippies eating cattle feed but I love when we culturally clash. I grew up around them so it takes a lot to really surprise me. My wife has been exposed to them over the years but they still can and do shock her on a regular basis. The one that really freaked her out was when certain of these male relatives of mine would pee in the kitchen sink if all the bathrooms were occupied and they had to go, especially if there were dishes in or near the sink. We were able to convince them that this might not be a sanitary thing to do in our house or in any house. We do not eat in their house or eat any food they bring to any family gathering. Let them eat their meat and we will eat veggies, but not let them wash them. These are also the same geniuses who teased the boys and told them that they threw like girls. The wife got hot under the collar with that stupid comment. I let her go after the uncle and cousins for that one. Meet her in college and she was on the softball team. Girl can definitely throw a ball and if the boys take after her good for them! So she challenged the geniuses to play some catch and they accepted. She brought out the 12 inch and started tossing it around. The guys decided to be macho and tossed away their gloves saying they played softball, a girls game, bare handed. The wife then chucked a few in underhand pitching style in order to sting a few dumbass hands. Suddenly gloves came back on as eyes were watering over. They now show her more respect and have learned to shut up around her. Also they just come, stay the night, and go the next day and on the return trip sometimes they just pass us by now.