Thanksgiving, my ASS

As you might be able to tell, I'm not what you'd call a family-oriented fella. Now, don't get me wrong; family's family, and I'd help 'em bury a body if push came to axe in the middle of someone's forehead. My ... distaste for familial duties goes through the roof quicker than a junkie through a dimebag on holidays. Even faux holidays like Thanksgiving.

I love the food. I love the pies. I dig the hors doovers my mom pops out like clockwork on all major food-gorging holidays (fancy cheeses, little chunks of meat on crackers, oh yeah, diggit) that sort of thing. I hate parades like no one's business. I hate them. On days during which there is very little to watch on television to begin with, what few shows I can stomach are pre-empted by a bunch of weirdos dressed up like other kinds of weirdos riding around on lawnmowers converted into giant mobile flower arrangements.

But wait. I haven't got to the best part. My aunt comes to visit.

We hate each other. It was mutual, it was at first sight, and it will eventually escalate into a Defcon One situation complete with Hazmat guys, National guards, at least one exorcist and most likely a visit from PETA. I don't know why she hates me, 'cuz I'm adorable.

My aunt, though, is another category. She spent something like 15 years in a camp that could only be described as Deliverance-esque. There was no contact with the outside world unless you wanted to hike/boat/whatever the fuck other modes of transportationa to the nearest town, which was like, forty-five miles away. And then all you got was a radiophone. She slept, I shit you not, with a loaded shotgun beside her bed. I don't know what it was she did in this place, although I guess it was some kind of logging/mining/disposing of corpses. In a place like this, and I know this from firsthand reports, the only thing to do is drink. It has affected her brain. She is crazy. She has a voice that can cut through solid walls like a lightsaber through flesh. My mother calls her 'certainly outspoken'. I call her 'fundamentally deranged'. The last time her and my mother went out, they were off the radar for about sixteen hours, and had narrowly avoided getting arrested twice. One of them was for Drunk and Disorderly, and the other was for causing a scene in a bar. My aunt was looking for her umbrella.

I think that's enough reason to dislike my aunt, and to dislike the holidays that bring her sniffing to my door for food, don't you??