Oh, Scarlet!

Sunday, the Bunny and I spent some time with his family. His grandfather acts completely insane, but is cognizant of his actions, and, therefore, uses this act to manipulate his offspring into submission. That, or they are tantalized by the desire for an inheritance. Thankfully, I am neither interested in his money or entertaining his misogynistic notions. His degrading commentary on the role of women and his constant one-upping attempts at every bit of good news I share has only made me more aggressive in my counter-remarks. That being said, "Paw Paw" loves and respects me, I think, more than the average family member.

He is a sad sack of a man sitting in a recliner all day, watching the gem network, and talking about how many days he has to live. My response: "Give me a break. You told us you were dying five years ago, and we still have you hanging around." I'm certain this induces mouths to fall agape, but I just don't care anymore. It's a nice feeling to have the freedom to be who you want to be with your in-laws. That only came with years of dating/marriage and some growing up on my own behalf.

We had to take the dogs with us on our visit this weekend because the family dinner fell during our open house. Staring at Dax, our ex-police dog/man, we started reminiscing about Paw Paw's old lab named Honey. Everything we shared about Dax, Paw Paw had a next-step-up response. "Oh, well Honey could use the shitter. What do you think about that?" I mostly sloughed it off until I mentioned Dax's hip displaysia, and he said, "Well, Honey never had that problem, and she was BIGGER than Dax. You must not be taking proper care of his joints."

Now, I know this seems wholly dysfunctional, and it is. For what it's worth, I tried to keep my mouth shut. I mean, he is a crotchety old man married to a boring woman that replaced the love-of-his-life dead wife. Then again, I can't handle negative comments attached to my dogs or my parenting of them. This is the man that took my news of graduating with my doctorate in English in May with the statement, "Well, I bet you can't tell me what a dangling participle is, huh?" Now that I am actually typing it into the blogosphere, it seems even more ridiculous, but such is my family life.

An example of how I lost my cool: "Oh, well I just guess Honey was one fucking magical, mystical dog, huh?"

Yes, sometimes I can be completely petty and inappropriate. I think it is happening less frequently, but this is the kind of social vomit that should've been stricken from my DNA via a Southern genteel inheritance. I guess I missed that gene.