I Wish You Were Sane, Just for Today
The Return of Carl
At the end of January, Lisa and I decided to take another vacation to Disney World. The plan was to spend a week out there with a friend of hers from the Boston area and her English boyfriend. We usually drive down to the parents' house the night before and fly out on a Saturday. For the second time in a row I thought it would be cool to drive down on a Thursday, work remotely on Friday, and fly out on Saturday. It makes the whole trip a little easier on me, the wife, and the dogs.
We got in Thursday night and my mother lets it slip that my train wreck of a brother, Carl, is supposed to arrive shortly after we leave for vacation. While talking to my dad she mentions that she's not sure if Carl is still coming on the 1st. This is all news to me. I ask, "So, Carl is coming on the 1st?" She goes into lie overdrive and says she doesn't know and pretends that this whole things is all very short notice to her.
Carl was last known to be in Arizona with his crazy girlfriend, panning for topaz or some such. The last I heard he would never be back and wouldn't be welcomed if he tried to return. I finally find out that Carl is planning on moving back to Texas without his woman. He's also planning on bringing his big dog with him. This disturbs the wife and I a bit as we have three very small dogs and I'm sure that Carl's dog won't be the best behaved of beasts.
I again emphasize that I'm not happy about this whole Carl situation. My mom says he can put his dog in the garage while my dad screams, "You think your mother doesn't know what's going on!? Why do you have such a problem with Carl?" That's probably a good point. It's not like he has a history of being a dumb ass…
Carl decided to move back to Texas after a visit over Christmas. He Greyhounded his way in, spent some time fishing at the coast, and then headed back. When he got back, he got stuck at some bus stop, called his girlfriend to pick him and was met with her laughter and general refusal to come get him. That's when he decided to come back home and leech off the parents more directly. Here's a picture of one of his fishing trophies from Christmas:
That's a handsome man. Of course, my parents show me this as a print out since they insist on printing everything (occasionally they rescan these pictures for some reason). The picture looks like shit, probably due to the large quantities of discount refurbished ink they buy, despite my insistence that that crap is ruining their print quality.
Why not write a book?
My mom then drops the bomb that she's thinking of writing a book. As background, my parents manage several rental properties that they've acquired over the years. They rent to disreputable poor people that like to destroy rental properties, as nearly as I can tell. The idea of the book is very unclear–it's either supposed to be a "how to" guide or a joke book. I point out that those are very different things and am generally ignored.
The "book" as it currently stands is a collection of stories she's collected over the years as a landlord. I think it should be called, "So You Want to be a Slum Lord," but I don't think that title is going to win out. When I ask what she plans on doing with it my dad screams, "She's going to get it published!" She currently has 11 hand written pages of directionless text. My dad then goes off on some tangent telling my mom that she needs a ghost writer because she can't write. They bicker back and forth for the next 30 minutes or so.
I'm Trying to Work Here
I get up Friday morning and try to work remotely using their slow ass DSL connection. The speed is made that much worse by Lisa sucking down all the bandwidth by using Second Life. I finally tell her she needs to get off in order for me to work. I spend the morning on a conference call with the insane people I work with. The meeting was scheduled for 1 1/2 hours and went up going 2 1/2 hours because no one can stay on track. We spend the last 20 minutes listening to the sales guy monologue about trying to put some research item to bed. He goes around the participants trying to elicit an "amen" and winds up with a handful of definite maybes. Very productive.
At noon I end the call and break for lunch. Me, the wife, and my crazy parents load up in the car to go eat. The wife suggests a place to go for lunch and my mom finally lets it slip that we're supposed to meet some relatives for lunch–an hour ago. I don't think they'll still be waiting on us and insist that my mom call them to find out. She calls, gets their voice mail, and then just hangs up. My parents decide they'll just drive to the meeting location, run in, and tell them that I don't want to eat with them. So I say we can just eat with them, though I'm not particularly happy about being duped into eating with more crazy people. I emphasize that we could just call them and let them know we're not coming. My dad flips out and starts screaming, "She did call! Jesus Christ!"
"Yeah, but she didn't leave a voice mail," I say.
My dad responds in his usual calm manner with, "They wouldn't have listened to it anyway! Goddammit! Jesus Christ!" We arrive at the cut rate buffet we're supposed to meet them at. Lisa finally gets fed up with me being related to raving lunatics, says she's walking to the nearest fast food restaurant, and wishes me good luck. At this point my dad calms down and we all convince Lisa to stay and eat with the family. I'm sure she's grateful for that.
We then proceed to eat crappy food while one of my cousins keeps calling me by a different brother's name. "Long time no see, Brian." She then insists that she's met my wife despite the fact that I haven't seen this cousin since I was a child. The whole group, uncle and two cousins, then jibber jabber incessantly until I finally eat my fill and drop numerous hints that I need to get back to work. Here's a bonus pic of the uncle p0wning Super Mario Brothers 3:
Dinner Time
I finish off the work day and find it's time for dinner. My parents like to eat dinner around 5pm or so. While discussing where to go, my parents drop numerous references to the fact that we don't like their new favorite Chinese restaurant. It's good to see they noticed. They decide to go to one of the Chinese places we actually like. Unfortunately, Lisa doesn't like the dinner menu there because it has some of the normal lunch items missing, has some seafood added that she won't eat anyway, and has a jacked up price that my parents complain about all through dinner. My dad then gets obsessed with the missing item issue and begins demanding a detailed list of exactly what items they're missing.
Lisa won't talk to him when he's in the middle of one of his rants so I have to try and explain. The best I can do is, "I don't know, but they do. She's not wild about their seafood and it's no longer worth the price if you're only eating the same stuff (if available) from the lunch menu." 20 minutes later he starts asking again, out of nowhere. I say, "This shit again? Do I really need to answer this again?" Insert awkward silent drive here.
After eating, Lisa needed to stop by the grocery store to pick up some stuff for the dogs. We went to HEB and convinced my parents to stay in the car since it'd be quicker. As we're about to exit the car my mom gives us some HEB gift card she bought from the church and says, "This might have something on it still." It wound up having 99 cents on it and took an extra 5 minutes to use because the cashier was confused by it. But on the plus side, I saved 99 cents. Woot!
Now That's Entertainment
When we get back, I hang out in the living room while my parents watch 1 versus 100 on full volume. While watching they scream answers at the television as if it's some two way communication medium and Bob Sagat will somehow value their input. A couple of times the contestant used a "help" when they didn't know the answer. My parents start screaming at the television berating the person for wasting one of their help options. Ironically, they then continue to scream out what winds up being the wrong answer at the television.
Disney World, Take Me Away
I head to bed, get up early the next morning, and take a white knuckle ride with the parents to the airport. We fly out, land, and spend a nice relaxing week at Walt Disney World. One of the highlights of the trip wound up being the Pirate and Princess Night at the Magic Kingdom. Disney closes the park, charges another ticket price, and has pirate / princess related activities and photo opportunities. A lot of people dress up for the party and we were no exception. Much alcohol was consumed, much fun was had. All of this despite the fact that the parents tried to put their "crazy" stink on the whole thing.
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