You can't go home again

Oh, family. Can't live with 'em, can't live with 'em. Or however that phrase goes...

Everybody knows their family is weird. I don't care if your last name is Jones, Curie, Baldwin, Hilton or Busey - your family is an embarrassment. You try to ignore it. you try to justify their behavior. You try to let it slide. "Everybody's got an great-uncle like that" "Grandfathers are just weird" "All moms have embarassing stories" Denial ain't just a river in Egypt. Take a moment right now and face facts - you're family is odd and shameful.

But it's not until we bring an outsider into the mix that we truly realize the extent of the Family Madness™. If your wrists feel like they don't have enough scars, you can describe your family to another person. In the process, you try to hide any number of secrets and cringeworthy behavior. When you decide to put the bullet in the chamber and the barrel in your mouth, you bring another person to meet the family. Beforehand, you'll spend a fair amount of time justifying their behavior and trying to give fair warning for all potential behaviors.

But you still do it. I don't know why, but you still do it. At least I do. I can barely stand to spend time with my own extended family - I really don't know why I'd try to subject somebody else to that hell. But I did. This Thanksgiving, I brought Legal Counsel home for a traditional Montgomery Family Holiday. And I now owe her forever.

Here's a quick rundown of all the fun things she was exposed to:

1. No less than two racists
2. A grandfather who appeared out of the walls whenever we even thought of billiards
2a. Who somehow assumed we'd give him a ride home on the other side of Phoenix
3. A 6yo cousin who spent the whole day stalking us, waiting to yell at us for making contact with each other
4. The genius that is having Thanksgiving in a house with 4 big dogs and several small children
5. My mom's self-absorbed, arrogant, asshole friend
6. My elective surgery addicted mom, slowly becoming the aforementioned friend
7. A somehow connected relative with legitimate, no-bullshit mental problems
8. Family members I barely know

And that's just off the top of my head.

The worst part is the racism. Racism is the steering wheel in my underwear - it's driving me nuts. No matter where I go, the subject of Mexicans keeps coming up. If I have one more person badmouth Mexicans in my presence, I'm going to car bomb them. It happened with an old friend in Tucson, and now with family.

We got stuck sitting at a table with the people I'm most distantly related to. I'm talking "the roommate of the daughter of the husband of the mother of the wife of the brother of my mother" here (seriously). Totally Spaceballs. So it was myself, Legal Counsel, my brother and four distant relatives. And somehow those distant relatives start discussing their desire for Mexicans to die in the desert. Sigh.

I turned to Legal Counsel and gave her the "oh god, please kill me" eyes. And she managed to convey Most Awkward Conversation Ever™ to me without drawing attention, which was impressive. We mostly kept our mouths shut, because I didn't want it to turn into an extremely uncomfortable family argument. We later mused that it was weird being the only liberals at the table (except maybe my broham). It was so embarrassing.

If that wasn't bad enough, the subject came back later. Out of the clear blue, my grandfather asked me, "So, do you still like Mexicans?" Seriously. Who the hell does that? I didn't even understand it at first. I had to ask him to repeat it. Eventually I surmised that he takes treating Mexicans as I would any other race (including my own) as "liking mexicans." So I ended up expressing that I have no bias for or against them with respect to any others. Friggin' old people...

So my Thanksgiving meal was tainted by hate and bigotry. Which are no good - they taste like Brussels sprouts (veggies, not soda). By the end of the day, I wanted to fling mashed potaters at people. Or force them to drink down a Jones soda Thanksgiving until they embrace diversity. That'll teach'em. That should be the new slogan: "Jones Soda: The Final Solution for Intolerance."

My family is racist. My old friends are racist. How did I end up the only non-racist? Oh well, at least I don't have to see them very often. And now the Most Awkward Conversation Ever™ has parts 2 and 3, which is nice. Why does the subject keep coming up? I don't get it. Can you see why I'm sick of it? Maybe there's an International Racist Conspiracy working against me. If there is, can somebody let me know?

The only good thing about the weekend was that I got to spend time with Legal Counsel. She made the whole thing bearable. I also got to see my main man, the Larkitect, which was nice. All told, I'm glad to be back in Tucson.

I might have more Thanksgiving stories, but for now I just wanted to share the racism.