everyone, stop what you’re doing. we have a man down. i repeat, we have. a man. down.

it appears that the tallest and strongest one in our house (he can open any jar i give him–yes, he’s THAT strong) has come down with the dreaded cold. i’m afraid it’s serious. all forward motion has come to a screeching halt. all plans have changed. all schedules cancelled. all clocks–stopped.

i was awakened in the night by moaning and coughing and blowing (get your mind out of that gutter this instant!) followed by more moaning.

*let me just preface this by reminding all of you that i had this same cold last weekend and was shown no sympathy whatsoever. in fact i remember a certain ‘jar opener’ handing me some advil and some sage advice like “hang in there–you’ll be ok–it’s just a cold.”

(i love it when karma’s wicked finger isn’t pointing at me)

it was 2:30am. i wanted to punch him in the face. i really did. it’s bad enough when the little ones wake me up–i mean don’t get me wrong, i want to punch them in the face too–but now i got this big, grown up man/child poking me in the arm and moaning, “shaun. a. help. me. uuhhhh.”

i threw back the covers, got up, and turned on the bedside lamp. “what’s wrong?” i asked, trying not to sound too much like a bitch. (i’m sure you can appreciate how hard that was for me)

“i’m sick. i feel terrible. you’ve got to do something. i’ve never felt this bad before.”

yeah, ok. first off, we went through this about a year ago. remember That? jar opener man? back THEN you felt terrible, you never felt so bad, yada yada. so let’s get our facts straight.

i didn’t say anything like that though. i oohed and ahhed and fetched pills, liquids, suppositories, ointments…you name it. i was like a modern day florence fucking nightingale.

*sidenote: do you think the real florence nightingale was resentful? i mean, don’t you think she was sick and tired of helping nurse poor people back to health? i bet she secretly hated them. oh, and on wikipedia, they reveal that she was quite popular–if you know what i mean.

one of the pills i gave him was of the sleeping kind. i didn’t do it for him–i did it for me. i had to get some sleep. i knew what the day held in store for me and it wasn’t pretty–and it required that i be well rested. so, true to the pill’s effects, resident jar opener fell asleep after an hour of moaning and saying things like, “have you EVER felt this bad? do you think anyone has ever felt as bad as i do?”

gee honey, i doubt it. you are probably the only person who has ever lived who’s felt this bad.

around 7, he awoke. and i knew this because the moaning picked up where it left off a few hours before.

i dialed my doctor to see if tommy could come in as a new patient. it wasn’t happening. why didn’t i call HIS doctor you ask? because jar openers don’t need doctors. ok? (me, rolling my eyes) so we did what we had to do. doc in a box.

he was too sick and too weak to drive (again, me rolling my eyes) so i rearranged my schedule and drove him to the doctor. we were called back to the room and when the doctor came in, she seemed a little puzzled as to why a grown man had his wife in the room with him. she was probably even MORE puzzled as to why I did all the talking. jar opener lay on the table (moaning) while i explained his symptons to her. she was busy jotting notes and looking from me to him and then back to me. when she went to examine him she spoke very loudly and very slowly. why was she talking to him as if he were a 5 year old?

ooohhhhh. she thinks he’s my very “special” husband. i couldn’t help but laugh. she thinks i’m married to a retarded person! that would explain why a grown man needs his wife in the room talking for him. i totally got it then. and so, i just played along.

she explained TO ME what was going on with him. she gave instructions TO ME about the medication, yada yada. after awhile, she didn’t address him at all. she spoke to me as if we were the only 2 people in the room. i don’t even think she looked at him again.

and it was fucking hilarious.

when we left, jar opener decided to drive. he was nauseated and thought that driving would make him feel better. we pulled up to the pharmacy window and he looked at the stack of papers in his lap and asked, “what do i do now?”

seriously, i think he might actually BE special.

“um, press that button right there and tell the nice lady you need to drop off your presciption.”

he turned to me and said, “i know why you’re making fun of me and it’s not funny.”

“oh trust me–it’s funny,” i said before snorting a laugh.

so he pressed the button…ok, this could take all day. basically, he couldn’t do it. he couldn’t drop off a prescription without my involvement. i had to lean over him and talk into the speaker. i had to show him which slip of paper to put in the doo-hickey so that it could be sucked up and delivered inside the store. yes, i had to do it all. and frankly, i wonder what the hell would happen to him (and the children!) if i was to die–or run away from home.

so, really, everyone better hope i outlive him or something really bad is bound to happen. and that, my friends, ain’t so funny.

ok, here goes. my dad has been anxiously waiting for the day i say something about his family. i haven’t before because a. there could be an entire blog dedicated to them and their retarded antics; and b. i have to spend SOME time with my family.

my grandparents on my dad’s side have passed away–my grandmother (grandma) died nearly 8 years ago suddenly (heart attack or stroke) and my grandfather (papaw) died last summer. they were delightful people–my grandmother was very sweet and loved the grandchildren. there are 9 and only one of us is in prison for life. those are pretty good odds right? after their deaths, we stopped seeing each other–not me and my grandparents–that is morbid!–me and the rest of the family. and i think it’s because we have absolutely nothing in common. some of us live in fort worth and some of us live out of state. of the grandchildren i would have to say i’m the most “normal” one of the bunch–my brothers included. and yes, i know that’s subjective. after all, i am the one who thinks “ball sack” is the funniest word on the planet–AND don’t forget my site gets linked with words like puntane and smelly vagina. so “normal” is all relative. and my relatives are not. i’m just saying if my family had to pick out the person who most resembled normal, it would be me. i think. but my brothers probably think they’re normal too. ok, let’s just say that my brothers and i are the most normal of the bunch.

anyway, growing up around my dad’s family always made for interesting conversation later. my dad has 3 brothers and the oldest one is clearly retarded. i used to ask, “is uncle darryl ok? because he keeps asking me how my mom and dad are, and well, you’re both standing right here. who is he talking about?” it seems he was confusing me with my mother. and then he would say, “how old are you now? 19?” and that was when i was 7, 13, 21, 28 and 34. maybe that was the only number he knows? at first i thought he was kidding around with me and i would laugh and play along. then after the billionth time it became clear that he wasn’t joking–he didn’t appear to be able to joke. he wasn’t quite clever enough. sad really. but not sad enough that i won’t talk about him some more.

uncle darryl is not the world’s most handsome man or cool with the ladies. although he has been married 8 times–or maybe it’s 9 by now. and the women he’s brought home were not the sharpest tools in the shed. nope. the marriages never lasted much longer than the expiration date on a gallon of milk. and that’s why at sixty something, he still lived with my grandparents. in fact, the only time i know that he lived away from them is when he would get married. i’m sure my grandparents partied and danced through the house naked, only to have him show up a few weeks later, duffel bag in hand and say, “mom, dad, i’m home. what’s for dinner?”

uncle darryl also loves to walk around without his teeth. have you ever tried to talk to someone who doesn’t have teeth? it’s very distracting–and gross. fyi: no one wants to see your bright red gums. and we definitely don’t want to watch you gnaw on a piece of fried chicken. PUT YOUR TEETH BACK IN YOUR MOUTH!

after my grandmother passed away, spending time over there became really bizarre. my grandfather wasn’t in good health, and what, with my toothless, somewhat mentally retarded uncle on the loose asking me how old i was and toothlessly gnawing on chicken bones, it was what i imagine prison is like–or a really good beating that you almost deserve. my dad soon uprooted to hawaii (traitor! but i don’t blame him) so it was me and my brothers and a few of my other cousins, my aunt and another uncle, and darryl. it quickly became clear that it had been my grandmother who kept this freak show running smoothly and without her, what was really the point? torture?

a few years ago, uncle darryl got in an accident. why the state of texas would give a drivers license to a questionably stable man is beyond me–but they did. anyway, at the hospital one of those ambulance chasing attorneys caught wind of my uncle and went to his bedside and told him he was going to be rich. my uncle perked up and listened like this was news chiseled on tablets from moses himself. when he told my dad what the lawyer had said, my dad immediately got involved because this would not end well for my uncle if left to his own devices. after several months and numerous trips to the attorney’s office, he did get some money. my dad made him put it in a trust so he wouldn’t blow it all at walmart. it was a good thing he did that because darryl asked for some of the money and when my dad gave it to him, he blew it all at walmart. it’s not like solving a rubik’s cube here, people! it’s like putting a jigsaw puzzle together–one that only has 4 giant pieces that a 2 year old can do–by himself!

sadly, my memory isn’t what it used to be. i’m sure there’s more to tell, but these are just the few bits and pieces i’ve been able to extract from my very normal brain this morning. i’m sure my dad will phone to let me know everything i forgot to mention. so expect part 2 of the saga when you realize your family is stupid–and i mean for real another day.

xo