Something old, something new/When Great Aunts attack

I promise this is the last of the funeral related things. It’s even kind of funny, in a disgusting/terrifying sort of way. When I say “back home” I mean the southeast edge of Ohio, just along the West Virginia border. I was actually born in West Virginia, because that is where the closest hospital was. Consequently, it should not surprise you when I say that (almost) everyone lives in trailers. The houses, which are in “town”, are built almost on top of each other; so close, you could almost reach out and rap on your neighbors’ window. Many people have satellite dishes, but only because that is easier to steal. Some people take drugs because that is all there is to do. EVERYONE smokes; even the toddlers. Okay, that is a slight exaggeration, but you get the idea. On a progressive note, I actually saw a few people of color there, which is more that I can say for Salt Lake City, or as I like to call it: “The Whitest Place on Earth (at least until you get to the airport)”.

Anyway, I am painting a little picture here with my words, a picture of poverty and ambient trashiness. However, the people are also a determined group: you’d have to be in order to scrape out a living on the side of a hill. So with all that in mind, you should be relatively unsurprised that my mother has an aunt that’s about her age. Hmm, another important thing to know about my family is that most of us are good people, some of us have problems of one sort and another, and there’s a few who are not worth a damn and which are only tolerated because, well, they are family.

This aunt of my mother’s was at the viewing. This aunt has been waiting for years for her “crazy check”: money and/or assistance from the state because she doesn’t feel like working. She was regaling my aunt’s husband with the story of how the air conditioner she dropped on her foot at work apparently traveled up her leg to her hip where it gave her hip cancer, except that it was probably actually ovarian cancer, which is truly astonishing because it means her ovaries must have grown back after her total hysterectomy about 15 years ago. You get the idea. In the middle of this soliloqouy she asks my uncle (who is not a health care professional) if he thinks the doctor could give her a new vagina. Wow. I know. I mean, my family is not all stuffy and steeped in formality, but wow.

The next day, we were talking about her (it’s okay to talk about the useless family members) in the car on the way to the gravesite. And it was just… hilarious. I mean, we went off with it. I said something about maybe she could get a “previously owned” vagina, and it ended up with “this here vagina belonged to a widow who only took it out on Sundays.” We were crying, but from laughter and it was good.

The day after the funeral, mom, my aunt, and I went to visit two of Papaw’s sisters who were now living together. The older one had moved in with the younger one and she wanted us to have some of the photos she had of the family. Of course she also pointed a loaded gun at my aunt and I, but… well, you know. It was funny in a way: she was sharing some of the things she had with us. She has guns; three guns to be exact. She was showing them to us, because one of the guns is really old, and one is really nice (I am not really a gun person, but I kind of wanted that gun. I think it must have been something in the air) and my mom and aunt’s brother was there and he said “Are these loaded?” and I was shrieking “YES!” in my head, because I had seen the bullet sitting down the barrel of one. The great aunt said “Well how else are you supposed to shoot them? Are they loaded?” She filled that last with such scorn, as if it was ridiculous to ask; like asking if ice is cold or how many handgun fatalities there are each year. And she told me that I could have one of the guns if I ever developed an interest in them. I didn’t take it partly because I didn’t want to appear to be asking for things, but also because I wasn’t exactly sure how I would be able to transport a loaded gun across state borders without asking to be stopped by the police.

My family: you gotta love ‘em, new vaginas, loaded guns and all.