WISCONSIN DEATH TRIP
Yeah, You Push ItAlright. Let me level with you.
For the last three months my computer, and thus my connection to the Internet, were commandeered by Catlady. You know how I was never on MSN, never seen or heard from, and taking weeks at a time to answer an email? That was her handiwork.
Fine. I put up with that. I consider myself a reasonable person.
She departs, only that I may do so as well, taken to a godforsaken armpit where the phrase "cable modem" is thought to be some sort of witch doctor's charm. My uncle has fallen under the spell of one of these "cable modems", and at least let me use it to let my parents know I was alright when I got there--Kahn would not have stood for more. By the way, thank you, uncle. Yours are the small mercies, and I'm more grateful than you know :^)
So it's been nearly four months since I last used a computer without worrying about people getting on my case for it. I'm feeling the withdrawal, here. This means I will now talk your ear off, whether you want to listen or not ;^D
"How did the trip to Wisconsin go?"
Let me break it down for you:
It was the best of times, and it was the worst of times. I may hate Dickens, but this once, he was right.
The good things: my utterly most swellest spiffy, spiffy grandparents. (I have no idea how such wonderful people had such disappointing spawn >^) ) My aunts and uncles, and their gracious senses of hospitality. Birch trees. Fireflies. (I think I'd give up some of my soul if the Devil offered to trade it for birch trees and fireflies moving to Florida, they're that swell. I sh*t you not.)
The bad things: like I need to mention Kahn and his Lady? (I've been thinking of calling her Vorpax, actually. She's the wrong skintone for it, but she definitely annoys me that much. Though that might actually make people think she's pretty and sexy or something *evil grins*.) Enormous supermutant mosquitoes that make the Floridian ones look like gnats. No bookstore/cafe`/music shop chains. No computer. Hay fever. A total inability to escape "family togetherness" except by napping. No TV. Restaurants that don't serve mustard on their burgers unless prompted to do so.
The antics of the royal couple are rising to a fever pitch. It's like the closer I get to being free of them, the nastier they are. And after me, Tenchi and even my mom went to such huge lengths to create and present them with such nice gifts. (I spent
all of my earnings for June on your birthday gifts,
Sir, you ungrateful sheepf*cker.) Seriously. I stayed up 'til 2AM composing his Father's Day card. I won't even tell you the lengths my own mother went to, making a lovely apron for his new wife. Grrrrr!
>=^F
Now, let's be fair. If there's anything Milord Kahn is well-versed in, it's the art of bribery-by-gifts. I think his words were, "I couldn't go on an overseas tour without bringing something back to my kids." "Something" being, among other things, a bootleg DVD of
Lord of the Rings via` the markets in Shanghai. He may not know anything else, but he knows his presents. I'll give him that. See? I'm not biased >^D
This latest episode was prompted by three things: soap, toothbrushes and deodorant. Or rather, a lack of all three. Yes, it's true: neither I nor Tenchi packed these things. Our luggage was full (remember the gifts?), and Kahn usually makes such a song and dance about "providing" them for us that we figured he would this time, as he always had before.
Big mistake. What, him?
Share? Him,
give us anything? Perish the thought.
Fortunately, our aunts and uncles are sweethearts. They had one extra toothbrush, which Tenchi used, and mouthwash and suchlike, which I made do with. And so for four days, neither of them caught us. In fact, if Vorpax weren't so paranoid, they never would have caught us at all.
"Suppose I tell you the truth," says I, "and say I didn't bring any?"
Talk about the sh*t hitting the fan. BOOM. She looked ready to have apoplexy and die on the spot.
I think her phraseology was something like: "You want to be treated like adults, but you're acting like children."
Who? Us? We're not the ones throwing a temper tantrum, dearheart. At any rate, one thing leads to another and he's in my room, looming up in that old way he used to use when sh*t was about to go down. I'm on my feet and in his face.
"You will never speak to me this way again. Never." I don't care if my voice is shaking. (Tip: you ever want an easy target, make a dain bramaged person mad. Their voice will do all kinds of crazy sh*t you can laugh about later >=^P Hence why I will never ever use vidphone, on pain of death ;^D) My hands are fists and I know how to use them.
"I'll speak to you any way I like!" *Cue the creepy mask-breathing sound* "I am your father!"
One thing becomes another thing and after much more fighting and the obligatory tears (I can make myself cry on cue,) I end up on one sofa in the living room, Tenchi across from me, the royals on the sofa opposite ours.
"I want to know something," says Vorpax. "When your father came into your room, for a second there you looked terrified. That scared me. Like you thought he was going to hit you."
An ugly hiccupping sort of sound that might be laughter. "Oh
yes," I say, Katie Hepburn as axe-murderer. "Absolutely."
Her, soft and cajoling: "Why would you think that?"
Burning holes in his head with my eyes. I never even look at her. The words are clear as I can make them--I want to be sure he hears them forever, for the rest of his life. I hope they echo in his head on those nights he stares at the ceiling and wants to scream but no sound will come out. I want them to be the soundtrack running in his brain.
"You used to hit me with a belt."
Funny how such a short sentence can cause such a huge reaction.
Of course, he swears left, right and upside-down that he did no such thing. I know better >=^F Although, knowing him, I believe that
he truly believes it. And either way he apologized. That doesn't make it alright, but what the hell, I'll give him a few points for trying. If only he would clean my shoes with his tongue for the rest of his life, I'd consider the debt about halfway expiated ;^D He's got a lot more ass-kissing to go, though. And at the bottom of it, I still don't like him. *Shrug*
We clash too much because we're too much alike. We're both powder-keg people. We both want things OUR WAY, or else. We both have a superhero complex. We even have the same nervous tick: there's this vein running down the midst of our foreheads that turns black as tar when we're angry. And when it comes right down to it, neither of us have any use for each other. We just don't "fit".
I love the man, but I can't stand him. Does that make any sense?
Ah now, it's not all bad. Clouds have silver linings and so did this trip. Met all the members of the side of the family who never used to speak with me, and for the most part, they're great. (*Shuffles names around to protect the innocent*.) Aunt Leda and Uncle Robin. Leda is the eldest of Kahn's siblings, and offhand, the one most like her mother: talkative and soft-spoken at the same time, with an intense nature-loving streak and an unbelievable green thumb. Robin, her husband, is a gruff, patient fellow with markedly conservative ideology. Aunt Elizabeth is like an old-fashioned magnesium sparkler--bright, quick and long-burning, flitting from task to task with almost superhuman energy and dazzle. Her husband, who shares first names with the Lionheart, said maybe two words, but he's a bigshot judge or something.
I learned things about the family history. Not lineage-type nonsense. We haven't any. We were all dirt-farmers, Back When. What I learned were the stories kept under lock and key, hidden for years, never spoken of. My grandparents, Alieda and Daniel, tossed casual remarks back and forth with lightning speed from across the nursing-home lunch table.
For eighteen years, I'd wondered what the deal was--what it was no one would say. I wanted to laugh when I realized it. The Great Boogeyman, the Unmentionable Thing, was this: they both married twice. Daniel because his wife left him, and Alieda because her husband died. This was the Big Secret that had cost them both so much over the years. And so what? They're happy together. They always have been. They sat there holding hands and laughing about it. Calling each other pet names. It must be as it was when they were younger, before "What Will People Think"-itis set in. It was a rare and beautiful thing, and I'm so glad I saw it.
They told me other things, of course: the woods near Alieda's girlhood home once held wolves, so many of them that none of the children wanted to be caught out along the highway (part of the route home) when the sun went down. Daniel used to have to boil water on a cast-iron stove to heat up the engine of his Model T in order to drive into high-school in the mornings. The big draw at Alieda's thirteenth birthday party was some newfangled type of instant dessert called "Jell-O". I'd never have known any of this if I hadn't sat down to lunch with them. Just me, Tenchi, and the grandparents--their memories took up the other two seats, off in the corner away from the table. It was one of those family moments that, in TV movies, occur all the time. It was the first, last, only time it happened that way for us.
I'm not going to pretend they've got time left. They don't. Their care will be stepped-up again very shortly--Alieda has no short-term memory left and is beginning to wander and get lost. Daniel's progression is more insidious. He's simply a little slower, a little weaker, sleeping more and eating less. If they're seperated, and they will have to be in order to be "managed" properly, one of the two of them is going to die. That's just how it happens, I guess.
Quirk of the visit/Twilight Zone-style surprise: My great-uncle, who I'd known for years solely by his nickname, is literally my Uncle Owen.
*In whiny Luke Skywalker voice* "Uncle Owen? Aunt Beru?" Heh. ;^D
And if you actually read that big huge tangled mess, thank you for your patience and your cookie will be arriving in the mail ^_^
Bye then ^_^
Labels: omg tenchi
