Get forked

I've been pretty lucky when it comes to receiving gifts. I've received some dumb gifts, of course, and my share of useless and thoughtless ones, but nothing that ever tipped over into 'truly demented' territory.

Not until Party Girl came into my life.

She's the Yummy Bikers mom. Now, Party Girl is a nice woman. She also happens to be a lifelong, hardcore alcoholic. I have never seen a human being put away the vodka like this woman can, and I mean from the time she wakes up in the morning, brothers and sisters. That first cup of coffee in the morning is half Smirnoff. No fricken lie. If you happen to be up at the same hour she'll pour you one too; and then sit there and laugh at you while your eyebrows singe and your nipples shoot off the end of your tits. It WILL wake your ass up.

She isn't a horrible drunk. Sloppy, yes, but not evil. At her worst she likes to wander around in a flannel nightgown, overflowing with love for all mankind, and give big friendly hugs. Nothing wrong with that.

The wrong part is when her giant braless boobs come swinging down like two Smithfield hams and nail you right in the face.

You can't really put your hands up either. I mean....yeah. You get the picture.

And let's say you're sitting down low, like on the sofa or something? Come the actual hug you get an added bonus: 25 pounds of big old blubbery mother-in-law boobage laying right on your lap.

It's......warm.

What are you going to do? I mean, here's this sentimental woman who is still overjoyed after 22 years that her baby boy found someone without a prison record to marry; and she's just plowed enough to where she loves the whole world, so really, what CAN you do? Pretty much just sit there. "Ok....I love you too...Ok. Boy, those are really just, you know, sitting right on my lap there. Yes indeed" ...and sigh and pat her on the back while she sniffles and tells you how much she loves you.

Bear this in mind as well: The Yummy Biker got his physique from HER side of the family. This is a woman who tours on the amateur champion golf circuit, ok? She's 73 and she's got biceps like wrecking balls. The last thing I want is the possibility of her pissed off at me.

Come the official winter Holiday season she shops, wraps, cooks and writes Christmas cards to the tune of a 5th of vodka every other day. (And remember, that's just vodka. Their neighborhood becomes a 24-hour floating cocktail party during November and December.) In a good year the card will be legible and there'll be money or a check. On a bad year?

We got a giant box-a huge monster box just tore all to shit by the post office. Inside the box was probably a months' worth of Sunday newspapers all wadded up tight into little balls. Three small boxed presents floating around in the middle of all that.

By this point in the unpacking process there is literally newspaper filling my front room. As it accumulates, once freed of the compression, the level is rising too; we sat on the couch and watched it gradually unfold itself and swallow the television and roll out through the divider into the kitchen. Ever see The Blob? We were laughing so hard we had tears rolling down our faces.

The biker opens his present; fine. My daughter opens hers; fine.

I open mine.

First I unroll a tube of tissue paper.

What to my wondering eyes does appear?

Three picnic forks.

Three yellow picnic forks.

........Ok.

Well, forks. Ok. Forks are.....useful.

But wait! Theres another flat package jammed beneath the first! Whatever could it be?

It's soft; maybe it's a t-shirt! That'd be cool; I can always use a t-shirt.


It is not a t-shirt.

It is underwear.

Big underwear. Big, big underwear.


Briefies.


Laundered briefies.



Five pairs. Of briefies.


My mother-in laws old, used, wore-out briefies.





This is the same woman who will roll up in a car that cost more than my house and announce cheerfully 'I have presents for you!" and mean it sincerely; in a voice that means she's expecting you to jump up and down with anticipation.

It also means that the trunk of her Cadillac is loaded with boxes and bags filled with the partially used contents of her refrigerator. Half-heads of lettuce and limp cukes with creepy sunken-in places on them and packages with like 2 pieces of bologna left.

She and her husband go hunting up in Alaska every year. Everything they kill goes straight into the freezer where it sits until someone decides it's old enough to pass down to me. I get frequent bequests of 5 year old freezer-burnt moose and ancient halibut, all of it portioned up and wrapped by a woman who's spent the last 40 years of her life pickled. I've opened a package marked HULBOTT to find only the tail of the fish inside; admittedly a huge impressive finny tail the size of a newspaper, but still...just a tail. Not even with any butt attached to it. Now, yes, it's kind of cool to mess with for a couple of minutes. Chase the dog around maybe. But after the novelty value has worn off you still have this fish tail. And its all huge and everything. Just...kind of....there.
Yup. There it is. A tail.
Yup.

Her creative side comes to the fore after a few C&V's too. The labelling on anything frozen is always always highly suspect. Waiting for something to thaw is like that part in 'Jaws' where the music starts, and that naked broad goes running out in the water in the dark and meanwhile you're all going "JESUS YOU STUPID BITCH GET OUT OF THE FUCKING WATER THERES A SHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAND THEN SUDDENLY THE MUSIC STOPS AND

Have you ever seen a moose tongue?

It is very tonguelike.

And here's a little-known fact: Even without the rest of the moose attached the tongue of the moose continues to exude buckets and buckets of viscous freaky alien DROOL. You'd think absence of a moose hanging off the other end of the tongue would tend to put an end to the whole drool production thing but boy would you be wrong.

I make her son deal with that that shit now. I don't even look at it. If I hear the seagulls going nuts out in the field next door a few hours later I can pretty well resign myself to the fact that I've been living with an antique bag full of frozen moose foreskins or something.