Answer number eight

My SIL Kristie has asked me to write about my in-laws. She called me to ask this after reading answers 1-5 because she forgot how to comment on the blog to pose her question. I will oblige her by making her question 'Answer number eight' although I question why is she not smart enough to comment on the blog since she used to be able to. Bless her heart.

So, I guess I cant pass up a chance to discuss my in-laws, since I was asked to do so and all.

"Here's a little story 'bout a man named Jed, poor mountain er' barely kept his family fed....................................................."

No, really.

I respect my in laws and can tolerate all of them, I get along pretty well with most of them. I get along just peachy with the over 50 crowd both male and female. I struggle more with the ones from my generation and under. Having said that, there is no relationship there, at all. I cant relate to them on many things, and they cant relate or understand me at all. None of them, with the exception of my two SIL'S, even really knows who I am, but I kinda prefer it that way.

So, I promised my wife, since these are her gene pool, that I will omit names. The first random generalization is that most of the men on both sides of the family are either truck drivers or farmers. While these are respectable professions, the agriculture and transportation industries are more of a rural thing that this urban manufacturing guy doesn't know anything about. Me and thee are from opposite sides of the world. The predominate crop, next to weed, in the area of Kentucky these people reside in is tobacco. (pronounced tah - back - uh) I don't think I had ever seen a crop outside corn or soy (raised in Ohio) until I was in my early twenties. There are two sides to this family, dads side has a few republicans who own tobacco farms, work on road crews, or work for local utilities and rock quarries, moms side is almost exclusively Democrat, truck drivers, and government employees. I will make some random commentary now to appease my slightly slow sister in law.

First I will address one of my favorite people in the older category from moms side of the family. This women is in her 70's I think and has as much energy and opinion as Grace, but Grace is four. She enters a room like a tornado with a megaphone and if there is work to be done, stand back 'cause all your gonna see from her is heels and elbows. I didn't have that much energy when I was 18 and she executes more verbiage in half an hour than I have uttered in my entire life. She is high energy, high opinion, high self esteem, and most notably, high volume. Nice and respectable older lady all in all, but there is one feature that stands out, literally, more than others. She girders on one of the 18 hour bras she picked up from a second hand Madonna outlet. They are pointed, and they don't point down, they don't even point out, they point up, its disturbing really. She will fold her arms (and lift them up a little further to do so) and pull one wrist out and waggle one finger while saying, " Now, just let me tell ya" right before some opinion spurts forth. The visual on this is priceless, I have almost wanted to say to her, " please tell me, but please please stop pointing those things at me and making them jiggle while your finger waggles"

Next we will go to another fav of mine from the middle generation of moms side, by marriage. This guy is a pill. He, as I pointed out is married and has children, but comes off as gay as the day is long. I know he doesn't prefer males, but he is the stereotypical gay male in appearance and behaviour. He is the well dressed and jewelry wearing, perfume smelling, metro with a very feminine lispy voice. He also happens to be an awesome cook and great hair dresser.

Next we have the evil twin. She is a little smarter than some of the others and uses this slight wit advantage to ridicule her siblings. She is one of those people who does little things that are subtle just because she knows they irritate somebody. If she walked into your house and knew you were OCD she would quietly de-alphabetize your canned goods and turn the labels upside down just to aggravate you.

Next we have daughter of the high energy granny. She did inherit moms boisterous voice, but not her momma's energy. Garden snail comes to mind, garden snail with a government job and a serious case of camel toe. No, no make that moose toe. Size sixteen tightly packed into a size nine package. yum yum. Keeping with this line of genes, she also has a daughter, who has the figure for the tight pants, but energy level still is being held at the top of the family tree. You put all three generations of them in one room and give them a topic you might just be able to solve the energy crisis 'cause these three get talking and the sound waves alone could boil water.

We musn't forget Auntie. Auntie is a strange bird. She loves gold lame' shoes, polyester pants, and drinks a diet Pepsi from a can...........with a straw, one of those bendy straws please. Its like a sippie cup for seniors. Auntie reminds me of an old sitcom character in the worse way. Let me sing for you," Green Acres is the place to be, faaaarm livin is the life for me......................." Here is the part that fits best...." Fresh air....Time Square........ you are my wife...........good bye city life,.... Green Acres we are there................" She just doesn't fit country folk if you know what I mean. Oh, and heaven forbid you stir her nasty green beans for her. She gets more agitated than Rosanne Barr in the Twinkies aisle.

Now we will flip to dad's side of the family, fewer targets but easy fodder for this city boy either way.

First we will pick on the younger than me crowd. I was in attendance at a wedding and in a slightly ornery mood. The bride clomps down the aisle like an oxen in a stony field. Her dad following behind her. Why behind and not next to you might ask, well, how do I say this delicately. The bride did not receive the wedding dress rule memo. This rule, rule number 12 if you want to look it up, says the girth of the dress should INVERSELY proportional to the girth of the bride. She either didn't get the memo or didn't look up the term inversely. What that means is that a large hooped dress does not work well with a large bottomed girl. Minimize the junk in the trunk on wedding day. She must have misunderstood that to mean that the larger the bride the bigger the dress 'cause there was not room for dad to walk next to here. Now, I had not been to a wedding in a while in which communion was observed, so this caught me a bit off guard, but I decided to have a little fun and cause some trouble. When the bride took communion I leaned over to the person next to me, who shall also remain nameless, and whispered, "Is she gonna ask for a second cookie?" The snort that followed from my victim immediately got me kicked in the shin by my spouse. Before you go getting all offended by my obvious irreverence here, there is a background story about her saying, " but I haven't had my second piece of meat yet" when there was not enough meat on the table to feed the farm workers who had labored in the hot sun all day. She had earned a little intolerance on my part, and I had earned a nice bruise on my shin.

Next we have the father of the bride, a good man, all in all a kind soul. I just get the feeling that he is the kind of guy who just wants to plod through life one step at a time until its over, some beer along the way would be nice, but not exactly the type to think outside the box.

The next one in the cast of characters is the oddest duck of all. She reminds me of Miss Piggy from the Muppet's in all the wrong ways. She inherited some money someplace and kinda lost her raisins as they say. (translation for other cityfolk, she forgot were she came from) Her personality is just as comically aloof as Miss Piggy, but the odd thing is her face is a dead ringer for the stuffed pork chop.

There is one more brother who I can only describe as Raymond, from 'Everybody loves Raymond' The biggest difference with this comical troublemaker is that he seems to have some really odd attraction to really really scary ugly women. That's all I got to say 'bout that.

Now its time for my sisters in law.

First I will go with the 'other sister'. (she is going to kill me after readin this) Well my other sister has a few habits that I find amusing. One is that she is a really nice and attractive women with a really strange taste in men. If men can possibly cause her some issue and heart ache, she is after them right now. Man number two was the stereotypical rich married guy, no shock here, it didn't work out. Actually the first guy was a bit immature and a bit inbred and she ended up marrying this one. No shock here either, it didn't work out. Next we have a long period of manlessness. A period in which she decided that she wanted to be self sufficient and raise her child all by herself. At some point in this season her sister suggested she leave this home town area because she needed to find a different class of men, something besides the local 'toothless pig farmers'( and that's a phrase from a country girl) Well, she didn't leave just yet, but she did move farther south and hook up with a toothless horse farmer instead. She got a good job with the state and things are looking up all over. She got married less than a year ago after spending many a year shacked up in a trailer first. (love ya sis)

Last and not least is my sister Kristie. I can use her name 'cause she asked for this post. Kristie has led an interesting life. She has seen it all and done it all. She has been in jail with no shoes. She has lived and loved her best friend, she swears she not bi- , but I still have my doubts that she wasn't experimenting with the possibilities. She has gone to a couple different colleges, mostly looking for her MRS degree. She lived with us once and 'stayed' with us once. I taught her how to drive, I will never do that again because I am obviously a lousy teacher. Her cars tend to look like recycled cans with wheels. Kristie has a good heart, but I wouldn't trust her with keeping $5 safe for me for a week. In fact, I have noticed that none of the girls have any clue how money works. Anyway, it is with this that I must bring this request to an end. Love ya Kristie.

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