One Foot on a Banana Peel

Yesterday’s trip to Erie didn’t kill me……and what doesn’t kill me makes me stronger, right?  Actually, most of the day was okay.  Maybe not fun or great, but okay.  With a friend along, Meg was in a good mood and occupied enough to not be a whiney pain in the butt.  My mom, other than making a few incredibly offensive comments, was pleasant and not criticizing everyone and everything.  My aunt, my dear sweet little old Aunt Peg………lord, she was another story.  She’s 82 and has had several strokes so I’m writing most of it off to age and infirmity, but still.  On the ride up she kept hollering at the girls to turn their music down or off.  It wasn’t loud, it wasn’t offensive, but she could catch a faint hint of it up in the front of the van and it BOTHERED her.  She also felt compelled to lecture Meg on how to behave at the shower. 

Now I’ll be the first to admit that Meg can be kind of crude with the burpin’ and fartin’.  She is just completely enamored of all things country these days and hasn’t yet matured enough to know that being country or even redneck doesn’t mean you have to abandon all kouth and offend everyone in a five mile radius.  It’ll come.  She is a teenager and she is trying out those wings.  We get into it over so much other, more important stuff that unless she has moved so far beyond what I can tolerate, I let a lot of it slide.  You know, picking and choosing my battles.  And hey, I figure all that burpin’ and fartin’ will keep the boys away better than anything her dad can come up with. 

Getting back to the point, which was……….oh yeah, my aunt lecturing Megan on proper behavior so she wouldn’t be embarassing at the shower.  I had to bite my tongue.  I mean, has my aunt ever met her grandchildren??  It would take a LOT to offend them, trust me. 

So, we made it to Meadville and everyone decided they were hungry so we stopped at Mickey D’s before taking the scenic (extra long) route to Cambridge Springs and the cemetery where my grandparents are buried.  From there our path meandered through Edinboro so Aunt Peg could see the university her grandson had just graduated from. 

Five hours after we left home we finally made it to Erie and we were still an hour early for the shower.  We helped one of my cousins finish decorating.  And then we sat.  And sat.  And sat.  And sat.  The shower was to start at 3:00.  The mother-to-be didn’t show up until after 4:00.  No, it wasn’t a surprise.  In fact, for all intents and purposes she threw the shower for herself.  She is just always late.  A running joke is that she will make advance arrangements for her own funeral and ask them to wheel her in late.  It was during all this waiting that my aunt lost any patience she might have had and got quite vocal about how ridiculous the lateness was.  Maybe everyone else lived close by but didn’t my cousin know we had a three hour drive back home and that she had pills to take at a certain time.  The longer we waited the nastier Aunt Peg got about it.  Finally my mom lost it and asked her how she could possibly have been worried about Megan’s behavior being embarassing?  I just wanted to crawl away.  Far, far away…..like maybe all the way to the bar, but since I was driving home I couldn’t.  Fortunately, after having all the strokes, Aunt Peg’s memory isn’t what it used to be and in 5 minutes or so we were all back to normal.  The grandkids didn’t visit much with their grandmother, but I did pin each one of them down and take their picture with her.  I’ll get them printed for her later this week.

To keep a long story from getting longer, let me just say that it took 12 hours to go to a 2 hour shower.

Just realized I forgot to mention how Aunt Peg took it when I told her she wasn’t welcome to visit her granddaughter’s home.  On the surface….pretty good.  Inside……pretty sure it hurt.  A lot.