So I’m finally back from my trip to my old hometown in West Texas and people who aren’t from Texas always think that’s no big deal but then they travel through Texas and realize that Texas is larger than Canada and Asia and India all rolled together. It doesn’t look that way on the map but you know when you’re in a really humid place and the temperature says it’s only 80 but you know it’s really, actually 8000 degrees? That’s what Texas is like. In size.
I spent the week with my parents, sister and her kids, reminiscing at the local whorehouse and wondering if the chickens roosting on my car were just drifters or actually belonged to someone and then that weekend Victor flew down so we could celebrate our anniversary except I don’t celebrate anything with that certain unlucky number in it because I’m OCD and so I made him swear that this was just our second 12th anniversary except he kept saying the unlucky number over and over and I was all “This is exactly why I didn’t want to celebrate this year because if you don’t stop saying the number I will divorce you and that’s totally the kind of thing that would happen on an unlucky year so fucking stop it” and then he’s all “What number? You mean -” AND THEN HE SAID THE NUMBER AGAIN and I decided that instead of divorcing him I would just cut one of his testicles off sometime this year because that will be unlucky enough and then we’ll still stay married because all the unluckiness will have been used up in that horrible ball-shredding accident and then he just looked at me like he was shocked that I’d even said that but technically this is our second 12th anniversary so he should kind of be used to that sort of shit by now. And also I’M SAVING OUR MARRIAGE, ASSHOLE.
So for our anniversary my family watched Hailey so Victor and I could go to this melodrama-vaudevillian play that’s been going on since the 40’s and there’s lots of drinking and you’re supposed to throw popcorn at the evil mustachioed villain when he comes out except I have bad aim and ended up just throwing it at the people directly in front of us and Victor pointed at the people sitting next to us like it was them and then a terrible popcorn battle broke out and we bought $300 worth of popcorn and destroyed the other people. Except one time Victor was off buying a pallet of popcorn and I got attacked by Sam Elliot and got so much popcorn down my dress it looked like I’d developed some sort of terrible tumor. Also, you know when you get that piece of popcorn stuck in your teeth and you can’t get it out because it would be too embarrassing to dig it out in front of strangers? Imagine that happening but instead of your teeth it’s your ear canal. And by “ear canal” I mean “vagina“.
Then the can-can girls came out and everyone sang along to “Deep in the Heart of Texas” with the live orchestra and some guy on stage quoted Sam Houston saying that “Texas can make it without the United States BUT THE UNITED STATES CANNOT MAKE IT WITHOUT TEXAS!” and everyone in the entire fucking audience yelled it along with him and I thought “Wow. No wonder other people hate us.” I have a video of the intermission here but it’s hard to see because I was really drunk because I need a new camera. And after the whole play/melodrama/burlesque thing ended I looked down and saw these small patches of blood on the floor and I was a little unsettled because Victor kept saying he was going to put rocks in his popcorn and take out the front row but it turns out that the carpet was red and that was the only part of it you could see under the piles of popcorn.
And then on the way out some chick was all “Damn. This is actually…a horrible waste of food. Just think of all the starving children in Africa” and I was a little offended because I realize they’re starving but I don’t think they want popcorn touched by vaginas. Also, it was kind of stale and I know because I ate some and then I felt bad later because I was eating popcorn that I’d thrown at people and they’d thrown back and it would land in my bosom and I’d scoop it out and throw it back and then they’d throw it back and inevitably some of it would land in the sack I was eating and now I’m pretty sure I have swine flu.
Then the next day we went back to my parents to set off fireworks and I accidentally set fire to their lawn in several places and I felt a little bad about that but then my dad was all “Oh, I promised the grandkids we’d set off the cannon tonight” and Hailey’s like “Yay!” I’m all “You promised my pre-schooler she could light a cannon?” and he’s all “No. Of course not. I told Tex he could do it” and that seemed much safer because Tex is fucking 6. And my sister just kind of shrugged because she’s used to this sort of thing and I’m all “Are you sure this is safe?” and Daddy assured me it was because Tex was just going to pack the cannon and prep it and stand right in front of a giant fucking loaded cannon but my sister still seemed undisturbed, most likely because she knew daddy probably couldn’t get the thing lit anyway and she was right but then daddy decided he just needed more fire so he brought out the blowtorch. This is when I ran for my camera because I knew no one would believe it and I sort of thought I should stop my father except that their neighbors had been setting off fireworks at midnight all week long and I thought it would kind of kick-ass payback if the cannon actually did go off. And it did. And it was awesome and no one died or got blood on them so it was more successful than most nights except for that part where I set fire to the lawn.
Also, I figured that my dad had stored the cannon somewhere during the day because I didn’t remember seeing it before that night but then when I was developing my pictures I noticed that the picture I took of the chickens has the cannon in it and I didn’t even notice it. Because that’s the kind of backyard they have. One where a cannon doesn’t really stick out. Also, it smelled weird there but I was used to that because the Taxidermy Shop is next door but then Victor pointed out that there was a dead bear on a table that had been raised up with chains to like 10 feet above ground and my first thought was that it was odd to have a dead bear floating on a table over your head and I wondered if daddy was trying to raise it from the dead like Dr. Frankenstein did when he raised his monster up to the roof to get struck by lightning but then I realized it was probably just a polite way to get the dead bear out of the way of company and that it was kind of ingenious really. Like window blinds, except with dead bears. Then Victor made me go home because all of this was starting to seem kind of rational and that’s usually a sign that we need to leave.
Comment of the day: Geeze, that sounds like a great night. Of course, you could have combined all the elements into one and it would have been really kick-arse! Imagine; packing the bear skin into the canon and firing it at people! They would be all “Fuck! I’m being attacked by a flying bear. And it’s must be freaking hungry, look how thin it is!” Of course, in the interest in fairness, they would have popcorn to defend themselves.
I’m still trying to work the chickens in. ~ mr sketchy