It's A Miracle...I'm Alive

Or, How Going to Ohio for Thanksgiving Was a Bad Idea

There was some serious , not planned too well, last minute notion to go to Ohio (Hell) to spend Thanksgiving with hubby's family. This was decided about a week beforehand, but we had to find a new puppy-sitter (the old one having stumbled on to my shit-list after the last trip we took away from home - There was an $80 porn bill I got stuck paying an then he had the audacity to declare me a bitch when I requested the money) to even make this trip possible. Actually, first there was a lot of bitching and anger on my part . I did not want to go. Getting me into the car to go to Ohio is a lot like taking an angry cat to the vet. Occasionally, there is some clawing and hissing. I hate Ohio and very nearly everything I've ever seen there...including G-Dub (Seen at an Ohio State graduation a couple years ago) and the second largest conical mound in North America which can be found in the shittiest little town, Enon Ohio. If you are a resident and currently pissed about this, I very half-heartedly apologize, but could you people possibly hang your traffic lights so they can actually be seen? Maybe next time, don't get the mob to do it! And what's up with the Fifth Third Bank? It's just too creepy.

This is the conical adena mound in Enon, OH. Special isn't it? It's right behind the police station as though they are trying to keep it guarded, which I find to be rather hilarious because if you drive through Enon, the police station is usually locked up and dark and all the police cars are parked down at the local bingo hall.

Secondly, hubby went hunting for the four days prior to the holiday in northern WI and wasn't supposed to be back until the day before the holiday, so it was a really tight fit. I, of course, was the laziest human on the planet while hubby was gone it having been my first time alone in the big house since we moved here and I was without a car (notably, this circumstance got BEG to declare me karma's bitch of the week again). Anway, I got Kinkypoe to watch the pets and hubby actually came home on Tuesday so he could get some sleep (he was defeated, having shot nothing but a seat cushion in anger). Whatever!

We get up on Wednesday morning, around nine with things to do before even thinking about getting in the car, like getting the car back and replacing the radar detector which the clip had broken off of. Hubby's family started calling about an hour later, and this is interesting because these people couldn't get their shit together and be somewhere collectively and on time if their lives depending on it. Regardless, we put them off, went shopping (spent way too much money as usual) and got back home just in time to greet Kinkypoe in our driveway.

I had had big plans to bathe before getting in the car for the trip that always seems like it takes a millenia and ultimately leaves my already non-existant soul a little bit further into the negative column, but I digress and there was no time for bathing. We get in the car at the exact wrong time, and not only get caught up in your standard holiday traffic, but we make it to Chi town just in time for their brutal rush hour traffic in the midst of ice rain and hubby's family calling continuously to find out where we are as though we might get sucked into some kind of black hole along the way and never be seen again (I would've welcomed this concept at that point should there have been an alternative to sitting in very nearly stopped traffic and inhaling exhaust fumes.

Also, the new radar detector kept flashing SPECTRE alert, which I assumed meant that it was picking up some kind of ghostly energy. We paid enough for it to detect the paranormal. I still don't know what the hell it actually was picking up so if any of ya'll out there have a clue, fill me in please. I'm a girl and generally the radar dectector just serves as an irritating noise-maker akin to the original Super Mario Bros game.

Somehwhere near the skyway, my 6 disk cd changer decided to stop working for no apparently good reason with 5 cds still trapped inside. I went ballistic about this as my car was just broken, is not abused (4 years and 33,000 miles) so the CD player is definitely not abused. I can count on my hands how many times the friggin' thing has actually been used (I am not the type of person who loads the damned thing to drive to Walmart).

My anger continued on and was joined soon after by a seriously horrible sick I assume was caused by the stress headache I had acquired and breathing in all the exhaust. The pack of Marb Mediums I had already smoked due trying to relieve the stress was probably also not helping me too much. It was about this time that I also realized I had forgotten to bring a coat, any sort of non-red-coated ibuprofen (am allergic to red dye) and the rest of my tension-reducing supplies. This also was not helping since I was freezing and beginning to feel homicidal.

Finally, we get into Indiana, where the rain hitting the windshield was freezing immediately on the glass. We're driving along, at about 50 mph due to traffic and suddenly an entire lane disappears into a construction zone with no warning very nearly causing a semi and at least 20 car accident that probably would have killed us all (at this point I also would not have been too opposed to this). Luckily, my quickly going to hell brakes actually stopped the car on the icey road and no one was injured to the best of my knowledge. The screeching brakes of the semi did not help my headache.

Having already consumed 2-gigantic bottles of Mountain Dew (I left the house with 12...I should just main-line it), I had to pee and we needed gas so we stopped at the travel plaza. Hubby was hungry, got some food, which when opened in the closed car, immediately caused me to literally start gagging. And then he asked me to help him with the damned ketchup packets cause he was driving and is like a raccoon and cannot eat anything even remotely dry. So, here I was with on hand clamped over my mouth and nose trying to prevent any projectile vomitting activity and putting ketchup on the most gigantic burger I had ever seen. Apparently, it was my gagging from the smell that prevented hubby from not finishing this burger and not the sheer size of it. But we continue on.

It was about this time hubby's youngest brother called for the final time. It was the final time cause stressed out hubby screamed at him and hung up. Also, the heat craked in the car due to my lack of planning in the proper winter attire department was drying the hell out of my throat and sinuses.

We get about an hour and a half away from hubby's parents' house, doing 95 mph (weather was better in OH) and out of nowhere, the new radar detector literally explodes, sending sparks flying everywhere and filling the car with the stink of burnt wires. It was special and I contiued to shake for the rest of the trip.

As usual, hubby drove right passed the entrance to his parents' subdivision. I attribute this to the fact that we only go to see them at most once a year. We only really ever find their actual house because it's identical to the one they had just built when they lived here in WI, but that's a whole different story (Maybe I'll share it sometime since it just goes to prove how truly anal and creepy they really are).

It was like 2 in the morning and we were exhausted, so we decided to crash. Usually we sleep in their basement, because it gives us a little taste of the separation that we are accustomed to having from the rest of them and keeps us from beating them to death (Every single person in this family with the exception of my two sister-in-laws has a 1-inch temper and there always seems to be something setting them off). This time, we slept in an actual bedroom on an actual bed.

This scenario causes a lot of troubles...for me at least. The last time I slept in this room, I got knocked up which was promptly followed by an abortion (since I don't want kids ever and this family's temperament mixed with mine would be insanely volatile and should not be carried on any further). I am not opposed to killing almost babies (Pro-choice all the way seeing as how it seems to be the only real option I'm allowed...although it will probably be wiped out by terrifying republicans sooner or later - we'll cover this later), but in the end it's a pain in the ass and really not something I would like to go through again. Enough about abortions for now.

This room also happens to be the warmest in the whole house and since their heat kicks in like every ten seconds, it was like sleeping on the sun, causing me to wake up like every ten seconds sweating like a pig and ripping off articles of clothing until there wasn't anything left to take off but my skin and I wasn't ready or willing to commit to that. Plus, I was without the proper skinning tools.

The actual holiday was fine for the most part, with the exception of one minor group argument about Christmas gift giving spurred by hubby's second youngest brother and his new wife, who I actually like now that I've gotten passed all her weirdness. I gotta give her credit for marrying into this family. I'm a strange girl myself, but she's weird in a whole different direction and she has to deal with the lot of them on a daily basis. I don't even talk to them unless I'm visiting them. I actually told them after the trip we had to their house this time around that I was never coming back. I suggested that they just tape a picture of me to my chair at the dinner table and throw some mashed potatos at it every once and while.

Got to do a celebratory dance when I found out that hubby's youngest brother's latest brown girlfriend (this is something that pisses off the fam, which I assume is his way of rebelling) finally dumped his ass. She's super groovy and way too good for him and I spent my last trip there dating her myself (long story) and trying to convince her to drop him and get a real man. Basically every time she asked me a question about the fam in general (It was the first time she had to deal with all of them at once and was meeting most of us for the first time in the 10 months they'd been together and she was mostly curious as to why my mother-in-law kept snarling at her like she was some kind of second-class human being of Peruvian decent), I told her to run. Telling her to run was easier than telling her that she was never going to be good enough for them and that she shouldn't waste another minute trying.

My eldest sister-in-law married to the eldest brother was actually married before and has a son from that marriage, which makes her not good enough. I'm not normal enough and I don't play by their rules, so I'm not good enough, but I live in WI with a state and a great lake separating us, plus I married the black sheep of the family so I get off easy and am cut more slack than the others. Mother in law loves the new one, but then again, she has big plans to be a baby factory and she's all chummy with her.

Anyway, I was very well behaved. I bit my tongue for the most part and played a lot of pool with my eldest nephew who is just learning the game. He beat my ass very many times which made me feel bad, but he's a kid so I couldn't be too angry about it. I won one game of 9-ball. Yeah, me! I like the kid though and I have a very clear picture in my head that he will run away from home and end up on my doorstep sometime soon...followed a couple years later by his sister (currently 5 years old). So far, the jury is still out on the littlest one (currently two and a half years old).

We get up Friday morning, ready to leave and hubby's mother insists on making breakfast. The computer is suddenly broken, so hubby was trying to fix it. I watched news on CNN and while G-Dub mourned, or rather pretended to mourn for popularity points, the soldiers that have died in the desert for no apparently good reason, I mourned the tragic loss of Mr. Miagi (Pat Morita). It was rather upsetting and oldest nephew tried to sympathize with me but he is way too young to know who the man was. Wax on...wax off, forever!

Finally we get in the car after my mother-in-law goodbyed me like 6 different times, most of them I wasn't even wearing shoes for and didn't even know where my stuff was. Hubby started up the car and miraculously after two days of utter hostility and dysfuction, the broken CD changer decided to stop holding my CDs hostage and just started spitting them out. I declared it to be a day after Thanksgiving miracle.

We left hubby's parents' house, headed for Grandpa's storage barn with bad directions. We finally found it and checked the place out. I stepped on a dead flat possum (not spelled right, but I don't care). There was also the decapitated head of a very frozen deer right outside my car door. Ewwww!

Needed gas and were in the middle of nowhere, so we stopped at this former CITGO near a nuclear power plant. There were plane fuselage parts in the yard of this gas station and a million and one cats running around, including and adorable Snowshoe kitten that I tried to abduct, since the woman inside at the counter who was skitting a blanket in her downtime told me they were all just barn cats and she didn't even know how many there were. Anyway, the place was scary and smelled like and outhouse. Got the hell out of there.

Heard 'Faith of the Heart' by Rod Stewart on the radio and had an 'Mmm Captain Archer moment', which caused me to have a mild case of separation anxiety from BEG who I hadn't talked to since Wednesday morning. Got over this pretty quickly when we arrived in Bono, OH, which also smelled like an outhouse and every other building was painted either pink or lavendar and was a 'Gentlemans Club'.

On the way back through Indiana before South Bend, a semi kicked up a gigantic rock and cracked my windshield. Stopped to see Gary in South Bend and had dinner with him. Called Kinkypoe to tell her we were running late. Started to snow on the way out of South Bend. Got though Chi town without a problem. Got back to WI to find we had run out of windshield washer fluid and the roads were a terrible disaster. Finally got home, nearly kissed the ground and decided that we had thrown off the system causing all the bad stuff to happen by traveling to OH more than once in a year. Won't be doing that again.

Mrs. Shortleash and Little Miss Maddy came to visit Saturday morning from all the way across the street. They are expecting baby #3 or #4, not sure. Let's just say it's pregnancy #3 and leave it at that. They're happy and excited.

She also told me of how 'The Puppy' (see puppy post on Part Deux) got drunk and unruly at The 'Hoe on Friday night and was throwing barstools, and how he got his ass kicked by a middle-aged woman and then literally tossed out of the bar onto his ass on the sidewalk. Poor puppy. Will he ever learn.

Also called BEG and requested to be karma's bitch of the holiday.

All in all, the car is apparently possessed, some more serious thought needs to be put into trips to Ohio before we get in the possessed car and I am glad to be back and thankful we made it home alive.

Hope everyone's holiday was better than mine.