A couple months ago marked an anniversary of some family bizarreness. The event is one that has been talked about and laughed at by many, many times. I am delayed in documenting this event through my weblog for various reasons, but the one most apparent is I finally found my notes…and I wanted to be sure I captured the accuracy of the event. Yup, I admit my age and memory has caused me to invest in several hundred 3”x5” note cards that I scatter about in a number of different places (so I don’t forget where I put just one stash).

Here’s my story and I cannot be persuaded otherwise:

In the winter ’07, I made a collegiate visit to my alma mater to do recruiting for my company. The timing of the event just so happened to coincide with one of my brothers visiting another, in a city about an hour from the campus. I decided I would take advantage of this coincidence and spend time with my siblings and their spouses. I folded up my vendor booth at the end of the day and took to the road for a visit.

Typically, our brotherly reunions are laced with friendly and sometimes down right mean barbs and jabs about college sports (they prefer the rival state university over my degree-giving institution of higher learning). I expected the same would be the case this time, but I would get to at least drink my brother’s cold beer while enduring the grief. Little did I know how this reunion would turn out.

I arrived to find my two sisters-in-law, Becky and Sue, already well into a consumption routine of chocolate Cosmos. Brothers Tony and TR had had a few Bud Lights as well. They all were getting happy. Tony greeted me, offered up a beer, and invited me to the kitchen. His soon-to-be graduated daughter, my niece Dani, was in the kitchen and they were mulling over – no they were giddy over an employment offer letter she received that day from a well respected, international architecture firm. How cool was that! I asked Dani what she going to do even though I already knew her answer.

It all really begins right now.

I told Dani that it was a good company and that I had interned with them many career years ago (Bizarrity #1). We were all excited for her.

Discussions continued and alcohol flowed abundantly as we stood around the kitchen island and talked. Somehow the converastion topic turned to tattoos. Tony proceeds to lift his shirt sleeve, sticks his bicep in front of me, and says “what do you think about this?” The knucklehead got inked! (Bizarrity #2). It was a picture of Mom…what do you think I think! (Bizarrity #3).  I never thought (not even in one of those wildest dreams) any of the brothers would get marked for life. I must have had this dumb and/or dumber look on my face, because Becky (Tony’s wife) stepped forward, swaying a bit either from the ceiling fan breeze or the Cosmos or both, and shouts “and what about mine?”

Now seeing one’s tattoo has never bothered me, in fact I usually ask what possessed them to do such a thing. Bec had gotten tattooed in the small of her back. Now because of the Cosmos (I think) she executed a near perfect half moon exposure no more than arm’s length away to be sure I got an unobstructed view of her tattoo. (Bizarrity #3 – the tattoo, and Bizarrity #4 – my sister-in-law’s cheeky-monkeys). I had to grab the kitchen island for support.  We laughed (or should I say I was laughed at because of my reaction) and decided to go to a local sports bar and grill for dinner, drinks, and more discussion.

All five of us piled in Becky’s car. On the ride over, TR asks if I had heard that his son, my nephew Trevor, had gotten a SBA loan and was buying a Sears store franchise the next week (Bizarrity #5). A 24 year old business man – holy cow! Obviously (and TR knew that), I had not heard that news. I started rubbing my forehead in disbelief. So Sue then decides to add the fact that their daughter, my niece Tara, had also gotten a tattoo above her ankle (Bizarrity #6) in memory of Grandma. “Oh yeah, and by the way, she has bought a house” Sue added (Bizarrity #7).

My brothers and sisters-in-law were now in a full hoot as I must have had a “please take me to the airport now, you’re blowing my mind” look on my face by now. That’s when I pulled out my first 3”x5” note card to start writing all this down.

Well they didn’t take me to the airport. We arrived at the bar instead. We moved a few tables together, ordered dinner and drinks, and I decided it might be best if I became the designated driver for the evening. The food came after a couple rounds of cocktails and beer (water for me thank you very much). As the volume at our table increased with each downing of a cocktail, other patrons of the bar started giving us the “pipe down” look. So Bec decides to deal with what she thought was their rudeness. Her solution? Throw French fries at them (Bizarrity #8). To her credit, she was an equal opportunity tosser. She started throwing fries at all the tables.

One table in particular turned out to be quite friendly. After being on the receiving end of a couple of her throws, two men stood and walked over. I thought “Oh great, now we’re going to get in a fight and be arrested for disturbing the peace”. Both these guys – Jay and Tyler – turned out to be high school classmates of TR, that I knew well and one in fact, Tyler, I had played high school football with (Bizarrity #9). We talked and soon discovered Tyler lived 7 miles from me in Texas (Bizarrity #10), in a subdivision I designed and have been actively involved with for the past several (many) years (Bizarrity #11).

The bizarre night-out continued much like the cocktails. At one point Sue looked at me with crossed eyes and said she needed to go to the bathroom. Watching her stand and walk away from the table, I thought she was still doing fine even though any pains she might have had beforehand were probably not affecting her at the time.  She was gone several minutes. Becky suddenly grabbed me by the shirt tab (I thought I was either gonna get kissed on the mouth or punched in the nose) and shouted “where’s Sue” about 6 inches from my face. After wiping my face, I shouted back (Cosmos affect the hearing you know) “in the bathroom”. Bec proceeded to then shake her finger under my nose and use non-Christian vocabulary in her disbelief (I guess) that I didn’t accompany her to the facility (Bizarrity #12). I dispatched Dani (still sober and laughing) to check on Sue and was soon given a report that a religious experience was underway with the commode (it was Sunday by now don’t you know)…and that it might be a while yet (Bizarrity #13). Dani finally was able to get Sue presentable and walked outside with her for fresh, winter air. There she decided to pull up a parking lot and sat against the building while my brothers and I tried to settle the bar tab. The amount may have been a bit sobering for them.

After about 10 minutes in the parking lot, everyone was finally in the car. Dani offered up a sucks-to-be-you smile for me and took off for her apartment (thanks Dan-o). My brothers, in their condition, now had to give me directions back to the house. We pulled into their driveway without much incident (except for having the windows down for Sue’s benefit – and ours) and everyone disembarked…and promptly fell to the ground. I now have Becky and Sue laying face up on an asphalt driveway in freezing weather and Tony and TR, in their attempt to assist their brides’ clumsiness, are sprawled on top of them. There goes the neighborhood (Bizarrity #14). Ten minutes later everyone, perhaps frostbitten, was in the house.

Tony practically carried Becky upstairs and put her to bed. TR got Sue to the guest room. We three brothers convened in the kitchen, looked at each other, and cracked up. At the time, Tony’s dog was a Boxer pup – all legs and with manners lacking. He was watching all this hilarity and decided to add to the party atmosphere by letting loose a puppy fart that brought tears to the eyes and caused a gag reflex. That dog needed to be at the vet hospital… OMG! (Bizarrity #15). Tony decided it best to kennel “Mikey” and did a catcher’s squat to open the cage door and promptly lost his balance falling against the wall and nearly did a header down the steps (Bizarrity #16). Of course Mikey thought it was play time and proceeded to give Tony a leg hump and lickin’. Needless to say, TR and I were doubled over, again, in laughter.

The laughter subsided a bit when we heard this pitiful “Tony” moaning coming from upstairs. Tony looks at us with a what-next expression and scrambled up to the bedroom. TR and I innocently tried to understand the muffled conversation going on upstairs.  A couple minutes passed and down comes Tony, shaking his head, with female undergarments and bed sheets in hand…and with those, he starts a load of laundry and takes a rather large empty container back upstairs for later use and hopefully better aim (Bizarrity #17). Laughter, once again, ensued.

Finally the 3 of us decided it was time to call it night. Tony went upstairs; TR went to the guest room. I had my own bedroom to finally rest my head and try to grasp the evening events. I fell asleep with the bed lamp on.

Now one might think that was the end to one bizarre day…well you’re WRONG!

About 6:30 a.m., I rolled over in my queen-sized bed and touched someone else’s leg with my foot. Pre-dawn, the bed lamp now mysteriously off, not a window one in that bedroom and I have a stranger in bed with me. I laid motionless for several minutes (you know the coyote ugly joke comes to mind here) trying to identify the person from the breathing pattern. Was it a sister-in-law? Was it a tacky gift or perhaps a blackmail from my brothers to keep the previous night quiet? I couldn’t stand it anymore – I got up and went to the family room (I was too scared to turn on a light and look back to see who my bedmate was) still wondering “who’s been sleeping in my bed…and they are still there” (Bizarrity #18). After messing with the TV and remote for about an hour, Sue comes out of the bedroom…sees me, grins ear to ear, and asks if I enjoyed by bed mate. I said to her “who in the world is in there”. “It’s your brother…TR”. Well for crying out loud! (Bizarrity #19)

Sue proceeds to tell me she got up for a nature call in the middle of the night and TR was gone. She freaked out a bit thinking he has nearly naked walking down a street or passed out on a lawn on a very cold winter morning. She couldn’t find him and finally woke Tony to help in the search. Knowing all the exterior doors were still locked, together they concluded TR was somewhere in the house. They checked bathrooms, closets, couches, behind curtains, under lamp shades and finally my room. Yup, there laid Mr. Cuddly next to me (at least he was still half-clothed)…and they closed the door and let us enjoy the rest of our evening together! To this day I find it hard to accept that brotherly love warrants the necessity to crawl in the sack with me (Bizarrity #20).

Tony is the next one to rise and shine this morning and with not even a “howdy doody good morning” first, he looks at me and just starts to crack up. TR is the next one up and he walks out in his skivvies and proclaims “how the hell did I get in here” (Bizarrity #21). Becky is the last one to roll out of bed, moving slowly across the room to continue her “down time” on the couch. I quickly ate a bowl of corn flakes (I had to get something conservative and American in me), said my goodbyes, and was thankful I had a rent car to take myself, and only myself back to the airport.

That was 21 bizarrities (at least) in a 14 hour time span. That’s an average of 1 per 40 minutes on this particular weekend. Logically one could take out the hours spent sleeping when doing this statistic (making it 1 per 27 minutes) but with TR’s “wandering habit” at night, I can’t do that here.

I will admit looking back at that weekend brings a smile to my face and a shake of my head. I have been asked to come back and designate-driver on a couple occasions but have yet to do so. And I’m not so sure next time I won’t just get a hotel room. Love you guys!

tm