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I Actually Missed The Scorpion Feeding
Sep. 25th, 2011 07:28 pmOh god, massive family get-together today.
It's - don't get me wrong, I love my mom's family, I really do. I just have to go in properly prepared, because I know at some point my aunt will start talking about how she skinned a rattlesnake yesterday and it tried to bite her after she cut its head off. Or my cousins and my mom's boyfriend will start exchanging stories about horrible, disfiguring industrial accidents they have witnessed while my cousin's girlfriend chimes in with something about her sister's cat that used to sleep on the car's engine block. And then someone will bring out the scorpion in the jar so we can all watch my aunt and tiny cousin feed it bugs out of the yard.
NO I AM NOT MAKING ANY OF THIS UP. All of these are conversational topics that came up just at dinner tonight. Last time I was there, we talked about botflies and carnivorous pigs and the coyote that tried to kill my aunt's boyfriend. We just - my mom's family is full of interesting, well-read, articulate people, but put us in one room together and we are just hillbilly-ness personified, I swear.
On the bright side, I got to see my beloved knucklehead cousin for the first time in 8 months. My mom and I were starting to think that he'd gotten arrested again and my aunt just didn't want to tell us, but it sounds like he's been doing all right, just hasn't bothered to replace his broken phone all summer. And I made apple empanadas that everyone loved even though we forgot the electric skillet to fry them in so I had to bake them in the toaster oven. And we don't have to do this again for months.
It's - don't get me wrong, I love my mom's family, I really do. I just have to go in properly prepared, because I know at some point my aunt will start talking about how she skinned a rattlesnake yesterday and it tried to bite her after she cut its head off. Or my cousins and my mom's boyfriend will start exchanging stories about horrible, disfiguring industrial accidents they have witnessed while my cousin's girlfriend chimes in with something about her sister's cat that used to sleep on the car's engine block. And then someone will bring out the scorpion in the jar so we can all watch my aunt and tiny cousin feed it bugs out of the yard.
NO I AM NOT MAKING ANY OF THIS UP. All of these are conversational topics that came up just at dinner tonight. Last time I was there, we talked about botflies and carnivorous pigs and the coyote that tried to kill my aunt's boyfriend. We just - my mom's family is full of interesting, well-read, articulate people, but put us in one room together and we are just hillbilly-ness personified, I swear.
On the bright side, I got to see my beloved knucklehead cousin for the first time in 8 months. My mom and I were starting to think that he'd gotten arrested again and my aunt just didn't want to tell us, but it sounds like he's been doing all right, just hasn't bothered to replace his broken phone all summer. And I made apple empanadas that everyone loved even though we forgot the electric skillet to fry them in so I had to bake them in the toaster oven. And we don't have to do this again for months.