What?? MY Family Isn’t NORMAL?

… just for clarification, I mean the family I was raised in.

I have a big family.

A big Italian family.

A family that gets together frequently using something trivial like a hang-nail removal as the excuse.

We all get along :: even the multiple ex wives of my cousin :: .. we laugh.. we kid.. we joke..

We have no addiction problems.. no felons.. no pedophiles. We are all educated.. have good jobs :: well, except for me since I was laid off but hell.. I’m a BUSINESS OWNER! :: .. take care of the things we need to take care of and don’t try to get things for nothing.

Arguments are few and far between and the whole of my speed dial capabilities are filled with people I share DNA with. There is never an excuse to be lonely or alone… one can always find someone to do something with.. or vent to.. or ask a favor of.

Everyone in my family has been married in excess of a decade :: even the as-for-mentioned cousin with all of his multiple ex wives :: .. there is no such thing as “distant cousin” or “second cousin” or “fifth cousin once removed”

We’re family.. through thick.. thin.. good times and bad.

These are the people I know I can rely on .. have my back.. come to my defense.. any time night or day.. as they know the same about me.

I used to think that other people’s families.. the one’s rife with dysfuction were the exception to the rule but recently it dawned on me that MY family is the one of those things that’s not like the other’s.

For the last 30 or so odd years ago my brother has been friends with Trek. And because he is my brother’s friend.. my family has accepted him as one of their own. He is like another brother to me.. so when his mother recently passed, my family converged on the funeral as if it was one of our own. And in a way, it was.

What struck me odd was that in the thirty years that I have known Trek, this was the first time I was introduced to his brothers and their wives and their children. It never dawned on me before. But what struck even odder was the fact that my MOM had never met them before. Thirty years is a long time to know someone and Trek’s mom has been to our house and our functions a zillion times but I just cast it off to one of those thoughts you have when your sitting in a church with a casket three feet away and there really isn’t anything else to do until the service starts except people-watch.

So fast forward to after the burial and everyone is invited to a luncheon. I don’t know why.. it’s just something that’s done, I guess. But anyway.. because I know where the restaurant is :: and my brother insisted on following someone ELSE :: my, my mom and my aunt get there first. And because we are the first one’s there, it is our duty to make sure that there is enough seats at the table to accommodate us three, my brother, his wife, my nephew, my brother’s OTHER 30+ year friend and HIS mother.

The tables hold 12 and since we were only 8 there was more then enough room at our table. HOWEVER, the table assigned to the family was short one seat and it became very apparent very quickly that Trek was going to be the short man out.

He sat with us and it was then that I learned that not all Italian families are as close knit as mine is.. that hardly ANY families are like mine. Trek has issues with his brothers.. issues that go far deeper then the fact that as the youngest brother and the only single brother, care for their ailing mother fell on his shoulders without any help from the others. That now, even before this poor woman had dirt on her coffin, the oldest brother was hiring a lawyer because he wanted his “share” of the family home that was sold to Trek almost 10 years ago.

It was disgusting… and so very sad.

When I got home that night, I told Chief that all this time I thought my family was the normal ones. And I guess maybe that’s why I have such a hard time here.

I was talking to Chief’s cousin Bird last week and telling her about how I wake Bubba up.. make him breakfast.. drive him to school.. wake Spaz up.. make HIM breakfast.. drive him to school.. come home.. clean the house.. straighten out the bedrooms.. work at the shop for a few hours.. come home.. cook dinner.. clean up after dinner.. iron shirts.. clean the bathroom.. etc. etc. etc.

She was like, “… you’re fucking crazy! You do WAY too much”

But the thing is… my grandmother did that for her family … my mother did that for HER family … and now I’m doing it for mine.

It was how I was raised and given that both my grandparents were married for 50+ years and my parents were married for 40 when my dad died.. I guess they were doing something right.

Bird said, “.. you know. You’re right.”

I have to learn to accept the fact that Chief and his family are different.. and that they never knew enough to appreciate what I am doing for them. Chief’s mother wasn’t Donna Reed so he doesn’t know what it’s like to live in an environment where there is no air unless it’s perfumed with Pine Sol.

The question is… who needs to adapt to what?

The Crack Whore’s Two Cents

… surprising that she even HAS it but that’s another post for another time!

So earlier, the boy’s crack whore mother goes to the shop and demands to know why Weed got kicked out.

Cheif explains to her that the PS3 was just the catalyst :: wasted breath.. she doesn’t know that word :: and that it was a culmination :: doesn’t know that word either :: of alot of things over a long period of time.

She tells him to call Weed because “… Weed feels hurt”

Chief goes off on her about how HE is hurt… how his brothers are hurt… how if Weed wants to talk he can call Chief.

It doesn’t end well… it never does.

She basically lives in a drug enduced euphoria LaLa Land where she isn’t responsible for anything… never sacraficed anything for her kids.. and basically survives by getting anything from anyone. Oh.. and frivolous lawsuits. Can’t forget about them.

The kids apparently inherited their “entitlement” gene from her.

May sound like I’m being harsh but it only takes being around her a few times before her methodology of living becomes apparent.

Case in point:

She constantly tells Spaz that she’s going to take him here.. take him there.. buy this for him.. buy that for him but never follows through. One night in particular, she promised she was going to pick him up at 6 to take him to the beach for the weekend. 6 o’clock came and went. She then called and said that she would pick him up after work at 9pm.

NOTE: She works sporatically. Usually when the courts get involved because she doesn’t pay her 43.00 a week child support payment. Yep. That’s not a typo. After 5 years of fighting, the courts finally granted Chief child support to the tune of FORTY THREE DOLLARS a week for three boys. Which she hasn’t paid unless there is a threat of being thrown in jail. Her excuse with finding a job has always been that she’s a felon but yknow… even WalMart hires felons.

Anyway.. on this particular day she was working cleaning houses. A job that only lasted about 3 weeks before she conveniently twisted her ankle on the job and sued both the person she worked for and the home owner.

But I digress…

Thing is, no one who cleans houses for a living cleans them at 9pm. And from the background noise, she wasn’t in anyone’s home.

So Spaz waited. Bags packed… out on the front steps. 9 came and went … 10 came and went.. 11 came and went and he finally fell asleep on the couch crying.

He called her cell the next day and the crack head boyfriend answered saying that she came in late and crashed on the couch and proceeded to tell a 10 year old things that he had no business to.

She’s also been thrown into a mental ward by the police for beating herself in the face with a remote control in an effort to leave a mark and blame it on the boyfriend beating her.

Also wouldn’t take the boys overnight in an emergency situation unless Chief gave her a few pounds of lunch meat, a galloon of milk and chips.

She’s done drugs with Weed, bought him a case of beer and a few bottles of whiskey for his 18th birthday and uses Spaz’s devotion to her against him.

I tolerate her at best… and never once have I talked bad about her to the kids. If anything, I vomit in my mouth whenever I tell them not to hate HER.. hate her ADDICTION.. and that she REALLY MEANS what she says WHEN she says it.

So now Weed is staying over there and it’s only a matter of time before either he gets sick of her OR she gets a taste of what we’ve been living with for a long time.

We’ll see how this plays out now.