In the Trenches: The Road to Turkey Day (Part 1)
As always, the wife and I headed to my parents' house for Thanksgiving. We missed last year as some of you regular readers may recall. This year we headed down on Tuesday evening. It's always good to get in a few days before the event so I can re-convince myself that I'm really adopted. It also makes it easier to haul ass out of there on either Thursday night or Friday morning.
This year it would just be my parents and me and my wife. The fun began as soon as we arrived. My mother informed me that the air conditioner was broken. They had discovered this on Sunday when they tried to use the heater to take the chill off. If memory serves it was a wintry 80-ish this past Sunday. When they hit the heat it didn't come on. They called some family friend to fix it. Whenever I need some work done, I love relying on friends to do the work for free. I find that I get my money's worth that way. He got it fixed on Monday and they discovered on Tuesday (the first time they tried to turn it on) that it didn't work again. The friend said he'd take a look at it as soon as he could, which meant it was broken on Tuesday night when we arrived.
The part that pisses me off most is that once again my parents felt the need to lie by omission. If they had told us of this fact we could have delayed the trip by a day or so. Another alternative would be for them to come up and see us. The last time I checked it was the same distance either way…
While I'm boggling at the complete lack of consideration about this air conditioning bullshit Lisa takes the dogs outside. While out there with our two chihuahuas and miniature dachshund (small dogs for those of you not in the know) she sees that the renters in the house next door (my parents are slum lords) have three pit bulls chained to various trees in their backyard (large dogs for those of you not in the know). I'm not a fan of any kenneling situation that involves chains and trees–too Sanford and Son for me–but that's a discussion for another time.
When all the dogs see each other it sets off a frenzy of barking and posturing by big dogs that like to eat little dogs and by little dogs that think they're big dogs. As she's trying to restore order Lisa sees that one of the dogs has discovered some delicious cat shit. People who don't own dogs may not be aware that all dogs are hardwired to devour cat shit on sight. They can't help themselves. The cat shit is strewn throughout the yard because my parents have taken to feeding the stray cats in the neighborhood. I've tried to tell them to fight the stereotype of old people and cats but they just won't listen. The added bonus is we both wind up stepping in cat shit, which is no worse than stepping in dog shit unless of course you don't own a cat. Then it just makes you develop an unreasonable hatred of cats–which makes you a lot like dogs with the exception that you (I assume) don't find cat shit tasty.
Moving on. I bought my parents a Wii recently to try and get them back on a Nintendo platform–they're hardcore gamers and I like having a huge supply of $20-$50 gifts to guy them. In preparation I bought myself a new wireless router. It's 802.11n capable even though I don't have an 802.11n adapter. I thought the supposed increase in range would be nice and this gives me a reason to buy a new laptop. I had set up the new router on Monday at my place and packed up my old WAP to take to the parents. They don't have wireless and I thought it would be grand to have the Wii use its built in WiFi adapter. As an added bonus the wife and I wouldn't have to drag 40 foot ethernet umbilicals around the house.
I get the access point up and running complete with a static DHCP lease off of their Freesco box, set up both laptops with the huge shared key, and nearly break arm patting myself on the back. I then turn my attention to the Wii only to discover that the television set my parents have in "the game room" has one coaxial input that already has an SNES and PS2 hooked up to it through a myriad of boxes that no doubt came from that slum of all electronics stores–Radio Shack. I thought all single input coaxial televisions were in the former Soviet Union, but I guess I was wrong. This in combination with the dripping sweat, sweaty sticky hair, sweat, and fucking sweat make me finally snap.
Me: Wow. It sure is pretty hot in here.
Mom: Yes. We may need a fan tonight.
Me: I thought you didn't have any other fans.
Mom: Do you think we should buy one?
Dad: What?
Mom: HE SAYS WE SHOULD BUY A FAN!
Dad: What for?
Me: It's 90 degrees in here.
Dad: Huh?
Mom: HE SAYS IT'S HOT IN HERE!
Dad: Well why don't we go get a fan.
Me: I need another cable for the Wii anyway. I'm going to fucking Walmart.
Mom: WE'RE GOING TO WALMART!
Dad: We are?
Me: No, I'm going to Walmart. Alone.
Mom: WAIT! HE SAID HE'S GOING TO WALMART!
Dad: Let me get my shoes. I'll drive.
Lisa: I'll go.
Me: Whatever. Hurry up.
Dad: What?
Mom: NEVERMIND! THEY'RE GOING TO WALMART!
Me: Stay here and watch the dogs or something.
Mom: WE'RE STAYING TO WATCH THE DOGS!
The wife and I drive angrily over to Walmart. We get there to find it surprisingly crowded for the Tuesday night before Thanksgiving at 11:00 at night. People aren't even buying Thanksgiving supplies. I see people with pillows and baby clothes in their baskets. It all very surreal. I get the electronic component I need and we find the fan department. They don't sell fans because it's winter. I can however buy a space heater. Fuck you, blue vest. I storm over to frozen foods and pick out a few things to eat. There's never any food in my parents' house because they eat out every meal. At checkout we find four registers open each with 10-15 people in line. It's now midnight. The cashier is moving like her job depends on it–her crappy job at Walmart, which is to say she's not in a hurry. To add to the strangeness, everyone pays in cash, typically with a $100 bill in there. Twenty minutes after getting in line we're headed out the door with our own bag of odd items: an RCA to coaxial converter box, a bag of Doritos, and 8 frozen TV dinners.
When we get back I set up the Wii, once again input the 63 character shared key, and begin the system update. Of course it's moving at a snail's pace because Lisa's on motherfucking Second Life (now with voice chat) utterly dominating the meager bandwidth my parents' piece of shit DSL connection has to offer. Over an hour later it completes and the new console is ready to go. Of course, my parents have long since gone to bed.
I decide I'm hungry and whip up a Hungry Man meatloaf and mashed potato TV dinner. My parents' underpowered microwave oven (with no turntable) takes a full 50% longer to get the meal to luke warm status than the instructions recommend. When I finally eat it, it tastes "brown." No real food-like flavor, just a nebulous brown-ness to everything. That's the only way I can describe it. We take the dogs out one last time, get barked at incessantly, both step in cat shit one last time and call it a night.
Man was not meant to live like this. Thus ends day one.
March 15th, 2010 at 12:28 pm
I operate with these dogs and as far as animal behavior goes, I am a solid believer in nurture and coaching. I've met Jack Russell Terriers that I wouldn't go around again, but have for no reason had a bad experience with an American Staffordshire Terrier. If you are speaking about their owners- well, which is a different story. Human beings are creatures as nicely, and we tend to every have our personal strategies about "moral concepts".