I won't buy you flowers.

"I hate my fucking life."
"I know."
"Maybe I'll have an accident on my way home from work. If I'm on my deathbed, people might have some more compassion for me."
"I seriously doubt it."
"Well, it's worth a try right?"
"Not really."
"Tree or ditch?"
"Fuck off."
"Which one... would be less likely to kill me?"
Every time the coversation goes this way, I withdraw. I just stop engaging. I'm tired of coming up with the reasons. I'm tired of trying to fix broken, desperate people. I'm fed up with giving a damn about people who care less about themselves than I do. I'm tired of being a lifeline.
"You coming to my funeral? I mean my house?"
I haven't been returning the texts. My phone rings. I silence it and throw it across the room. After a few minutes, I pick it up and listen to the short, sad voicemail. Then, I delete it. I set it down and a moment later there's another text.
"Guess you don't even give a shit."
"I'm not coming to your fucking funeral after you kill yourself. You're the one who doesn't give a shit."

I have very serious issues with suicide. I have extremely serious issues with people who like to joke about it as a way to get attention and pity from me. I understand that you're hurting and lost and crazy and sad and desperate and broken and miserable. I understand that this is one of many ways people cope with bullshit. It's not how healthy, rational people deal with it. It's not how I deal with it. But, it's how people like you choose to deal with it. I also understand that one day it won't be just something you say to get attention and pity. I understand that a thought can become reality. I understand that one day I'm going to ignore you and that it'll be the last thing we ever do together. The last thing I ever say to you might be "fuck off" and I won't take it back afterward. It scares the fuck out of me understanding and knowing and believing these things. It scares me to be completely hopeless and powerless. It saddens me to realize you're not nearly as strong as I thought. It makes me physically ill to know that I've always been the stronger one and that'll never change. It kills me to know I'll probably outlive you and that you'll die a stupid, pointless death at your own desperate hands. I also have come to accept that it's not my responsibility to constantly defuse the situation. I can't be the one person holding back the tidal wave of your self-destructive impulses. I can't be the catcher in your rye. I can't allow myself to fall into that role no matter how bad I secretly want to and - even on some desperate level - need to save you from yourself. I can't fight your battles for you. I can't kill your demons. I can't.

All I can really do anymore is draw a very solid line and refuse to cross it. I won't come to your damn funeral. I won't bring balloons and cake to your pity party. I won't cry... at least, not out of sadness. Any tears from me will be filled with salty hate. It's better that you know that in advance. I will hate you forever. I will spit on your grave. I won't romanticize who you were when you were alive. I won't relive all the amazing moments and completely disregard the bad. I won't adjust the final score in your favor. I will eventually forget your face. I won't talk about you. I won't write about you. I will delete and erase anything I already have. I will match my value of your life with your own final appraisal. I will stop caring. I will force myself to drown everything that once cared or loved for you. I will euthanize your presence in my mind and heart. I will purge your memory. I will probably vomit involuntarily and punch whatever might be within my reach. I will do terrible things, but none that compare to your own last, ridiculous act.

No, I'm not coming to your fucking funeral.

Hoarding, for the Disinterested Minimalist.

Every time I watch Hoarders, I am overwhelmed by the compulsion to throw things away. Anything really, but usually in bulk. If it's not a substantial purge, the compulsion lingers. I have to say I've already done a fair amount of downsizing as far as personal property is concerned. I moved from a three bedroom house with garage into a two bedroom apartment with no garage into a single room of this condo. My piles of crap used to fill the entire space of each of those larger residences. I have no idea how I managed to reduce so drastically while transitioning between each. Well, I have some idea. I donated a ridiculous amount to Goodwill. I also donated a ridiculous amount to the landfill.

There's a point to this, I assure you. I'm in the midst of another purge cycle. I recently watched my new all time favorite episode of Hoarders. It involved two sets of animal hoarders. They were also very unstable, aggressive people.

It should be noted that every time I watch an episode of the show I also think of a certain group of relatives of mine. I think of how they have amassed all the discarded furniture and trinkets of our combined family past and how the growing bulk of that bullshit is no longer able to be contained in only one home. It has migrated to two now. I used to be really upset whenever I'd see something of mine - my dresser from childhood with the car stickers I attached, the missle casing my uncle saved for me from his time in the Navy, my office chair which mysterious dissapeared from my room while I was still living in my grandmother's house - but I've realized that I simply don't care about things. I don't have any attachment to the things I've lost in this way. For the most part, I wouldn't even remember half of them having ever existed or played any substantial part in my life if not for this museum of ancient family artifacts that has been created for that precise purpose. The office chair was rather more recent and what I would classify as a real bitch move since I was still using the damn thing, but I'm not sure they can help themselves when it comes to helping themselves. Anyway, I don't need it anymore. I've done perfectly well without. Maybe better than that because I learned not to allow them into my home if there's anything I don't want to mysteriously vanish and just as magically reappear in their monument to other people's second-hand bullshit. They might not know any better, but I do. It's difficult for me to be in that environment. I don't like feeling as if all the things piled up around me are trying to hug me as I try to walk by without disturbing the precarious way it's all been stacked. It's like a deranged version of Jenga. If you lose, you're going to be crushed to death by half-empty photo albums, dirty clothing, broken clocks, old telephones, entire dish sets, and all the miscellaneous things As-Seen-On-Tv. I feel somewhat claustrophobic in those houses. I am able to fully cope with the situation only when I'm fully inebriated. Which might explain... nevermind. I'm not even going to attempt to psychoanalyze anyone in my immediate family. It's not worth it. We're all fucking crazy in our own special little ways.

Back to my original point, I'm in a purge cycle once again. This time I'm discarding another round of clothing that I'm fairly certain I've never worn. It's nice clothing. It's not exactly what I would define as my own personal style, but I could see myself wearing it someday. Of course, someday is just code for never going to happen. So, there's another Goodwill donation. Perfect timing, too. It's all winter clothing. I'm also discarding all my management propaganda. All my binders and files and charts and manuals - relics of another career and another life. I also found a birthday card to me from my former babysitter and failed tenant of the yellow house - ripped that shit up into tiny pieces. It's absurd the things you keep for years without realizing just how much dead weight you're dragging along with you. I don't think that's something worth saving for seventeen years - especially since the bitch always put ketchup on my sandwiches. A Ziggy birthday card is not going to make that all better.

I don't know. Sometimes I don't understand why I have so many things. Things I don't need or want or use or even know I have. No matter how many times I try to purge myself of the useless and irrelevent, I always manage to keep an entire stash of things to surprise myself with later. "What the hell... Why do I still have this? ...and what is it? ...or what is it a piece of?" I don't know.

I also have a problem with discarding computer components. That's the real issue I'm going to address tonight. I believe that I had kept these components for spares in case I needed to replace one in my desktop computer. This never happened, but it could have. Still, it didn't. Of course, I've upgraded and rendered that ideology obsolete and slightly absurd now. I just found three 3.5" floppy disk drives and a whole gang of diskettes to go in them. I think I missed my window of opportunity for transferring whatever the hell is on them onto a better media format. As far as that goes, I think it's about time to let go of the VHS and audio cassettes, too. I don't even own the devices necessary for utilizing either and couldn't see myself purchasing them even if I did manage to locate any that still function. So, those are all going to be added to the discard pile tonight.

I like throwing stuff away. It's been my favorite thing to do ever since I moved out of my grandmother's house and I no longer had to worry about her digging through my garbage and trying to salvage everything I had tried to throw out. If you've never seen a hat made out of crushed soda cans or a purse made out of plastic shopping bags all twisted up and woven together, you can't possibly begin to comprehend my anxiety about throwing things away in my grandmother's house only to get them back reincarnated in some craft-time insanity for Christmas. I wish I was joking about that. Don't even get me started on The Great Food Expiration Date Debate. I don't eat anything that has an expiration date on it that has expired. I don't care if that date was yesterday. I'll shave my head and eat my own hair before that will ever be an option. Of course, if I were to try to throw out a food item with an expiration date that has expired, I'd have to not eat dinner at my grandmother's house for the next week. Because if it's not magically back in the refrigerator, it's in the crockpot. It's not much of a surprise after the first time. Fool me once, shame on you - but it'll never happen again. Believe that. As far as that goes, I don't typically eat at my grandmother's house anymore. I only brave it on special ocassions and when someone else is cooking - not that it's any safer, it's actually more dangerous for completely different reasons. But, I actually didn't eat there for the majority of the time I lived there after that first revelation. You're not going to win me over to your side of the argument by quietly revealing to me that the dinner I just consumed was created solely from all the food ingredients I had thrown away for being expired and half-rotten after they had laid at the bottom of the garbage bag for a few days at room temperature while cultivating an entire colony of food borne bacteria which are now rioting in my digestive system and will soon be expelled from my every cavity. I don't respond well to that shit. If you're not related to me and you try a stunt like this, you won't survive to tell the tale. If you are related to me and you try a stunt like this, you should be prepared for some old school, Shakespearean tragedy to befall you. I'm a fairly dangerous person when I'm properly motivated. Just something to remember, but you'd be better off not testing me on that point. So, yes. I thoroughly love throwing shit away now and never having to see it again. It's simply delightful.

I have resisted my family's attempts to plant the seeds of hoarding in me - other than the outdated media components, of course, which will be rectified shortly. I guess that makes me a survivor of sorts or a rebel. I may make it look easy, but it was a long, cluttered road.

Life in limbo. Still.

It's incredibly difficult knowing what I want and how exactly to get it, but being trapped indefinitely in this bullshit universe of incompetence and bureaucracy. It is purgatory and I'm floating hopelessly in limbo thinking I have a chance of simply riding it out. It's incredibly difficult being equally cynical and optimistic.

[To be continued. I just got ambushed by some interesting people with interesting theories. Check the other site for that later.]

Labels.

I've reconfigured refined the post labeling system. At this point, there are only four five active labels for posts.

Posts labeled Kingsgrave House will feature my interactions with various other members of my family. Chuckle It Up presents some of my more humorous personal mishaps and anecdotes. 1000 words will still feature some sort of media element and may or may not offer an actual, related post as well. Link Me All Over will feature external links in an effort to direct web traffic to my other projects or - possibly in rare circumstances - pimp someone or something out. Prose will direct you to posts that are more creative/serious in nature, which will eliminate the necessity for me to maintain yet another seperate site for those works.

Shortcuts are located on the menu bar to the right and labels will be enlarged based on frequency of use, so you should be able to easily find whatever you're looking for while waiting ever so patiently for me to update and provide you with more content.

Enjoy!

I will add additional labels as necessary.

Live this day. (2004)

It's a brand new day. I'm sure you've said that before. Can you count the times? I won't even try. Maybe you can't remember having actually muttered the words. Doesn't matter. You have heard it said. How many, many times, so have I. Welcome to today; it's brand new. Uncharted territory. The only frontier left to us undiscovered, pure, original. A brand new day.

Dog shit.

I know the theory of today far too well. I know the logic of that flawed argument. Yesterday ended, tomorrow has yet to come, welcome to today by default and a play on verb tenses. The real truth is - it's all an illusion. Time intervals are tricky fallacies we trap ourselves in to separate moments, events, lives. In reality, yesterday hasn't ended and refuses to do so. It continues forever. Day after figurative day it grows more monstrous and unrelenting. It's a collection, a limitless dumping ground for all our spent moments of life. Tomorrow never comes. There is no such thing as tomorrow. It is a lie. Even in our deaths, as our consciousness fades into the infinite void and we slowly rot away, we can not touch the tragic and failed legend of tomorrow. There simply is no morning after, no next day, no future. Today is the never-ending story of our whole lives and beyond. There is no escaping this day. Today is forever and ever and ever.

We confuse the complexity of this truth in so many ways. We watch our shadows move around us in small arcs until they finally stretch and explode and envelope our worlds in the darkness of a dead day. We make our observations and measurements and calculations. We mark the hours. Add. Multiply. Divide. We fancy ourselves brilliant masters of time management and believe our basic mathematical competency makes any moment more special than the last. We develop systems, routines, behavior, science. We divide our days into hours, minutes, and seconds. Everything is timed and carefully calculated. We mark off the progress of the Earth's rotation versus its revolution around the sun and call it 1 of 365. We dress this imagined progress up with titles, numbers, subgroups, and more numbers. We give each rotation it's own signifier to further the charade that every day is in fact different. Monday, Wednesday, Saturday... Fill-in-the-blank day. We reference the Good Book and group them by 7. If it was good enough for Him, we will shape our days in His image. New days. Brand new days. One entire week of them. But it's not enough. We need more ways to compartmentalize and divide and exploit our new fiction of time progression. We invent months to group our weeks and days. 365 is such a harsh number to swallow. 30 is much easier number to play with. If we can just chop it up into small enough pieces we may not ever have to chew the bullshit that we're swallowing now. January, February, November. They are so deliciously imprecise and awkward. We weigh them out like an apprentice butcher. This one has 31 days, this one only 28. We have a 25% success rate and that's good enough for us. We can't even divide evenly and we think we've actually accomplished something. Delighted with our own ingenuity we count each revolution to chart our success. 1, 500, 1999, 2005. We've come a long way now. Something ended, something began, something changed. We made something happen. What? What changed? Nothing. We imagined it all and reveled oblivious to our own arrogance and ignorance. Yesterday, today, and tomorrow. The divine trinity of time. A perception we taught ourselves to marvel. How magical it all seemed once to think there were these convenient compartments to stuff the imaginary and random segments of our lives into and desperate try to hide them behind a simple expression and a travesty of language.

To what purpose, to what real effect do we make these distinctions? Order to chaos. Things must be made more manageable. We can not allow the infinite nature of time to continue unchallenged. We can not possibly be expected to confront the magnitude of forever without some expert practiced method to simplify and degrade it. We can not possibly be expected to handle thoughts and ideas larger than our fragile lives and worlds. So we cut it all down, reduce, package, label. We take it all in small doses. We build up our tolerance until we become immune. We think less and micromanage reality. We embrace the casual expressions that mock our limited grasp of our own inadequacy. Rome wasn't built in a day, afterall. There's always tomorrow. Remember the good ole days? It's a brand new day.

Lies. Propaganda. Yellow journalism.

Tomorrow never comes. Yesterday is spent. There is only today.

[revised on September 20, 2009]

Coma recovery.

I slept nearly an entire day in this enormous hotel bed. It's weird sleeping in a bed designed for humans. If I toss and turn, I won't suddenly find myself plummeting from my bunk and falling the five feet to the floor of the sleeper berth. It's stranger still not to feel the world rapidly turning beneath me as I dream about a world I'm moving through and beyond. Until only recently, it felt as though I'd been swimming for a prolonged period of time and hadn't managed to convert back to being a land-based mammal. Perhaps that's why I've been sleeping all this time, it's awkward getting around. Speaking of aquatics, I've also managed to take three showers in less than 36 hours. It's simply too much for me to pass up another opportunity to shower without having to make a fuel purchase or leave an absurd towel deposit.

You might be surprised that I'm posting here. I've decided that I still need this blog to discuss things that aren't particularly relevent to my pursuit of a new trade/career. To that effect, I've moved the Father's Day posts to this blog along with the associated media. I've actually been meaning to do that for some time now, but the process of trying to cut and paste on my palm is far more aggravating than I can tolerate. I've also been toying with the idea of an improved indexing system. As it stands, my current system is a little... redundant. Alot of the tags mean exactly the same thing and that's if I even remember to utilize them. I definitely want to get back to my idealistic roots and post original work as well as continue to keep everyone up-to-date with my life and whatever shenanigans I happen to get into. It's ambitious, but so am I. Balancing my work schedule with wifi availability will be the real challenge. The indexing system shouldn't take long to redesign. I should probably be able to get that done tomorrow sometime. Of course, leave all the important things to my last day off. Procrastination! Love it. Speaking of which:

I have several posts that I need to get typed up and posted to the other blog. The last two weeks of my "training" were somewhat stressful and simply making it through each day of that time period was almost more than I could handle. I'm really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really glad that I'm no longer in that truck. Really. There are many things I need to rehash and work out of my system before moving on with the next phase of my adventure.

For the moment, I'm in Dallas and not doing a damn thing other than relaxing. Also, I need to do laundry. Tomorrow.

Cake, anyone? Part 1

I left Indiana some time after 4pm last Friday - after packing up my hotel room, taking a shower, and having a quick bite to eat to finish up the little food I had left in my tiny refrigerator - and I arrived back home some time after 8pm. My original plan was to just go home and relax, but that's not what happened. I knew some of my family was visiting from Georgia and I figured my sister would probably be sleeping before work (if she had to work, I wasn't sure), so I decided to keep on driving a few more miles and pay the family a quick visit. It would be a very quick visit. I didn't want to stay more than hour. I think I did, anyway, but it was a good try on my part.

The visitors weren't around. Actually, no one was around at first except for the grandparents. I talked to my grandmother for awhile and then she tried to get me to watch Burn Notice. Fuck Burn Notice. As I was about to leave, my local aunt and uncle showed up. So, I talked to them for awhile and met my new cousin.

"Do you remember your braces?" My aunt asked me as I looked at the little gnome in his car seat.
"Braces? They come with teeth?" Is what I almost said until I noticed the little boots and straps covering his tiny legs. I had completely overlooked those. No one had said anything was wrong with the child. I just knew there had been some tension because some of the visitors had made some remarks that had pissed my local aunt off and it had gotten to the point where if one more person made fun of her child... Fill in the blank. I honestly hadn't even noticed. I guess I don't really care about babies enough to distinguish much between them or even look to try. But all of this was overshadowed by a new thought in my head. "I had braces?"
"Oh god, yes. Full body cast and braces all over you. You don't remember that?"
"No, I don't. I don't remember most of surgeries either. I remember the last two only." I remember the second to the last most of all since I actually woke up during the surgery. The anesthetic wore off or something. I came out of unconsciousness and freaked right out because I awoke to find myself strapped to a table with masked people surrounding me with horrifying looking surgical tools and this strange futuristic brightness that didn't quite form a room around us. It was shocking and horrifying. I seriously thought I had been abducted by aliens or something. I remember one of the men telling me that I needed to calm down. He told me to take deep breaths and relax. I remember someone else saying that they were going to lose me. That really scared me, because I believed it. Instead of continuing to panic, I took long deep breaths and surrendered to whatever was about to happen. I could have very easily gone into shock and died. Luckily, I didn't. "No. I don't remember most of them. Definitely don't remember the brace. He won't either until you remind him."
"Oh, well that's a relief."
"I suppose."

I left quickly after that moment. I had gathered enough information about the visitors to know not to come back the next day like everyone kept asking me to. The visitors were loading up a rental truck with all sorts of antique (meaning heavy as all hell) furniture and boxes of random fragile bullshit. Not something I really want to be a part of, so I waited until Sunday to return to visit them. I was mostly successful in my attempt to avoid being recruited as free labor. When I arrived, I had a brief conversation with my visiting aunt and uncle. My visiting aunt took her daughter somewhere shortly after that to visit whoever and my visiting uncle recruited my local uncle to assist him in continuing to load the rental truck. My grandmother decided she needed to go grocery shopping since there were plenty of people around to look after my grandfather while she did so. She asked me to go and I did. I didn't even think about it. There's something genuinely unsettling about that house these days. It's mutating into something strange. I can see the very core of it is still the same as I remember, but everything else is different now. Anyway, I definitely wanted to get away from that house.

Shopping with grandmother was sort of fun. She did her shtick where she was to have funny little awkward conversations with everyone that only she understands or finds humorous. These people look to me for guidance or assistance and I just smirk and shrug. I can't help you. Deal with it. Finding the things on the list was entertaining enough because there is a reason for every brand that she chooses and a story behind it. Fascinating stuff. The last item was a cake for grandpa - actually it was more for everyone else, but it was in his honor being Father's Day and all - and she wanted an ice cream cake. Unfortunately, the grocer only had these tiny cheesecakes left. I would have suggested going over to the other town grocer practically across the street, but we don't speak of that place in any close proximity to my grandmother. Not after the great turkey incident of 2005, anyway. So, the cheesecakes were our only option, unless...

I googled Dairy Queen on my phone. The DQ in town had lost its franchise rights due to inability to upgrade equipment and then had been converted into a burger place after no one would return to the newly christened "Dairy Oasis" which still carried all of the same products but with the DQ logos removed. Anyway, the next closest DQ was near the airport and it was only a walk-up concession booth type deal. I didn't think they would even sell cakes, but I decided to try. We were in luck. Not only did they sell cakes, but they had someone cancel an order that had already been completed just a few moments ago and we could have it at a discounted price. Freaking brilliant, I am. The cake was three times the size of the mini-cheesecakes we were looking at and about the same price with the discount. It was perfect.

That was the last perfect moment of that day, of course.

Cake, anyone? Part 2

I was feeling pretty pleased with myself at that point. It was going to be a great day and I was partly responsible. Hurray for me. We returned to the house and unloaded all our groceries including the awesome discounted ice cream cake. As a reward for helping grandma do her shopping, she gave me something out of her refrigerator to eat for lunch. I was in such a great mood that I ate it after only mild inspection. I did cook the crap out of it in the microwave though - just in case. I obviously wasn't thinking clearly, because I should have realized that by assisting in obtaining the ice cream cake I was silently agreeing to stay for dinner as well.

"Are you staying for dinner?" my local aunt asked me.
"Um. Yes, sure. I guess I am."
"Then can you help your uncle load the rental truck so I can take my husband shopping for what we need for dinner tonight?"
"Um. Yes, sure. I can do that."

Damn. It wasn't so terrible, though. Most of the furniture had already been loaded and I had assisted on a few of the larger items already. Nothing that was left to load was all that heavy. The remaining pieces were just large and awkward. We also took alot of breaks, like when it started raining and after I climbed over everything to secure straps and ropes. I talked to my visiting uncle quite a bit. I can't remember ever having an actual conversation with him, which might explain why I became hysterical when he asked:

"So, what's new with you?"
"Since when?" I asked. "Since the last time we talked? I'm not sure we have time for all that."

We talked about the things I had been learning in truck driving school and we exchanged war stories from our lives as middle management in the wonderful world of retail. It was shocking and surprisingly enjoyable being able to relate and discover this common ground between us. Grandma joined us at one point after receiving a phone call updating her on the status of one of our senior relatives. She was in the hospital my sister worked at.

"What floor does your sister work on?"
"The shittiest one according to the stories she tells me when she comes home every morning."
"Oh, come on. Gut en Haben. What number?"
"I don't know. It's the shittiest floor, whatever number that is."
"Well... So-and-so was on the ninth floor but they moved her to the second floor. You think that's good? Does that mean she's getting better?"
"I don't know. Why don't you ask one of the many functioning nurses in this family? I guess that sounds right. I mean, the closer they put you to God, the closer you probably are to meeting him. Right? So, lower floor probably means she's getting closer to the lobby and she's closer to getting the hell out of there. I have no idea, though. Maybe."

Actually, no. My sister later informed me that the closer you are to the lobby, the worse off you are. In case of an emergency like a fire, they want all of the most critical patients closer to the ground floor to make evacuation easier. The healthier patients are all put on the top floor and left to fend for themselves during the catastrophe. Which makes more sense than my "closer to God" theory, but we didn't have that information at the time and everyone seemed pretty content to believe mine.

When my local aunt and uncle returned, I could tell my aunt was already pissed off. She was very short with everyone and she was talking to herself. I immediately regretted agreeing to stay for dinner. They unloaded their groceries and my local uncle fired up the grill to begin making kielbasa and porkchops. My aunt and cousin began making side dishes in the kitchen. My grandmother had been talking about getting grandpa out of the basement and outside for hours previous to that point. I would have helped make that happen, but I'm not entirely sure how the pieces of the impromptu ramp fit and stay together. I'm also not entirely comfortable using a winch on living things, especially people I happen to be related to. So, now that the creators of the transportation system had returned, my grandmother began working on them.

"Your father would love it if he could sit outside and see everything that's going on."
"Do you want me to do that or make dinner? Because I could just go home."
"Oh, well. I just thought..."
"I have no problem leaving and someone else can do all this. You wanted this dinner!"

My grandmother, having been confronted, retreated in her typical fashion and began the process of shunning everyone. Since I had been stuck in the kitchen and had witnessed the event, my aunt turned to me.

"What do you think?"
"I... honestly don't care either way. I can leave, too. I can eat at home. It doesn't matter to me at all."
"I can't do everything."
"I know. She's been talking about it the entire time you were gone though."
"Well, tough shit. I can only do so much."

I also decided to retreat to a quiet place outside to smoke and text my sister who was missing the eventful day.

"She's probably going to poison the food." she replied when I caught her up to the most current event.

I returned to the house and kitchen to find most of the preparations for dinner were complete. Everything just had to finish cooking. My local uncle bounced between the grill outside and the oven inside. My local aunt had relinquished all cooking responsibilities to him. She sat angrily nursing her newborn. I wanted to do something to help out, but I didn't want to step on any toes. I decided I would clear off and set the table, but no one would give me a definitive answer as to where we would be eating. Both the dining table and the picnic table on the front porch were piled high with boxes of random bullshit. It would be quite an ordeal to clear off either and there was no way to tell if the shit belonged here or if it was supposed to be packed up in the rental truck. It was exhausting to even think about it, so I gave up. My local aunt had been muttering and then she finally spoke out loud and to me.

"I'm not going to eat tonight. Is that weird? I made all the food, but I won't eat it. Is that weird?"

I immediately recognized the tone. My mother uses that tone when she's insane about something. It's not really a question. It's a test which is worse. If you answer in the manner that she wants you to, you are given immunity to the current emotional shit storm and recognized as an ally. If you answer in any other way, you are immediately added to the ranks of the enemy in the current raging battle. I am quite familiar with how to play these games, but I haven't actively engaged in them in quite some time. I believed I could still manage it, so I made my best effort.

"No, it's not weird. When I used to work in the food service industry, I used to spend the better part of nine hours making food for other people. By the end of the day, I was so sick of seeing, smelling, and touching food that eating any of it was the very last thing I wanted to do. So, no. It's not weird. I totally understand." Most of which is a lie, because I'd still be hungry and I would eat after that every day. But, I can be fairly persuasive and cunning. So, whatever. The ends justify the means, I suppose.

"Good. I didn't think so." After a brief pause and a look around she added, "I didn't poison any of the food. I'm going to eat it tomorrow. I'm just not hungry tonight." Then she went upstairs to hide out for the rest of the night. I sat there not entirely sure what to believe at that point. Why did she have to say that? Now I had serious doubts about whether she did poison something or not. I did eat when dinner was ready, though. I guess I'm reckless like that. The children and grandparents also ate. None of my aunts and uncles did. My visiting uncle was still loading the rental truck. My local uncle had disappeared somewhere. My local aunt was hiding upstairs. My visiting aunt hadn't returned from her visit yet. My grandmother and I were alone in the kitchen. She was making a plate for grandpa and I was making a take home plate for my sister.

"What is that sound? Is the farmer working the field next door?"
"Sounds like it. That's definitely a tractor, but it sounds a little closer than it should be."

I also made myself a second plate and sat down at the cluttered kitchen table to eat it. Then I saw him. My local uncle was riding the lawn mower around the yard. He wasn't eating because he was now mowing the lawn. My visiting aunt returned and instead of getting her husband to stop and join her for dinner, she joined him with loading up the rental truck. That's when I realized every single one of these people was completely insane. I honestly didn't even care about the damn ice cream cake at that point. I was ready to leave. But, my grandmother insisted we serve it even though only half of the people there had eaten dinner. We brought the cake outside to the picnic table. She had gathered tiny plates, spoons, and a butter knife for me to cut the frozen solid cake with. Of course she would, why not? Why bring me an actual knife that was the appropriate size and suitably sharp and thick enough for the act at hand? I shouldn't expect that on this day.

"So... who wants cake, then?"

No one answered. I sighed. I was getting to my own personal breaking point now. The novelty of my dysfunctional and extended family had worn off. I started cutting pieces of cake. I probably cut 10 to 12 pieces of it. I arranged them on the table and selected one for myself. No one else did. I was beyond caring. I ate the cake too fast and gave myself a delightful ice cream headache which only added to the migraine they had given me already. I then selected a piece for my sister and started toward the house to wrap it in tinfoil and deposit it in the freezer until I was ready to leave - which would be not soon enough, honestly. But, I didn't make it that far. The phone rang. It was my mother. Grandmother allowed me to complete my current objective before handing me the cordless. Naturally, at this point everyone suddenly decided they were on board with the whole dinner and celebratory ice cream cake scenario. They also became very loud. I tried to find a quiet place to use the phone, but every time I almost found one it began to roar with static and threatened to cut out. It was obnoxious even trying to have a conversation at that point, so we gave up. My mother was very tired anyway and I was aggravated.

After the phone call, I gathered up all the food for my sister - I took alot more than I had originally intended since no one was eating anything and I decided it was their own damn fault and it was just too fucking bad for them because they had ample opportunity and I no longer gave shit if they ate anything at all - and said my hasty goodbyes. I was never happier to leave anywhere than I was then.

The damned cake.

The edible graphic reads ''King for a day.'' Grandma had them add ''Thanks to the queen!'' in orange icing.