Witness For the Prosecution: Meeting the In-Laws

There have been a very limited number of times that my family and my husband's family have hung out.  Not because they don't get along.  But they are polar opposites.  The first times happened when we had been dating long enough that we figured it was about time to meet each other's families.  I went to Denver first to meet his.  They had a beautiful home with an actual bidet.  His parents put me up in my own room, with its own bathroom.  There were even presents waiting for me.  It was unbelievable.  After a few days there, I took him home to meet my family.  I had been dreading that day my entire life.  But I figured if he met them, knew what he was getting into and still wanted to marry me, then he was the one.  It was autumn.  I remember this because when we pulled into our driveway, which is really a dirt path in the grass, and shut off the car, approximately 14 cats jumped on the hood for warmth.  In my heart of hearts I had been hoping that someone would think to get rid of the shopping cart in the yard, but it was still there, rusting away.  In the silence he turned to look at me.  I started to cry.  I don't remember a time when we had less than 10 cats.  I do remember having more than 30.

Me and some cats. 

"I gave you the secrets for getting in good with my family, what do I need to know to impress yours?"
"It doesn't take much to be better than anyone any of my siblings have brought home."
He hadn't run away yet, so I invited him in.  The front porch to my home is metal.  Through some miscalculations in construction, it is suspended one inch off the ground.  It makes an unbelievable amount of noise.  No one is breaking into that house.  Not that they would want to.  My dad opens the door before we do. 
"Have you seen Gandalf?"  I stare at him blankly, and wonder if he's lost his mind.  It is a weird question, even for him.
"The gwee.  You know the mangy yellow pock without a tail.  I have to give him his deworming medicine."  I cannot imagine what is going through J's mind right then, but he manages to point at his car.  And without any other greeting my father runs off to catch a cat.  We go inside.  Our house is pretty small.  All of my siblings, and two of my nephews are there crammed mostly into the tiny kitchen and living room.  One of my nephews, Slim, is the first to greet him.  He is tall, with a failure of a mustache on his upper lip.  He is wearing a cloak.
"Hi.  I'm Slim.  I like medieval stuff."
"I can see that."  For the most part, they behave themselves, and miraculously he married me anyway.
The other encounter that stands out in my mind happened some years later when my dad and Muscle Whip were visiting us in Denver.  Muscle Whip had bought a car on EBay in New York, flew out with my dad to get it and drive it home.  They stopped to see us on their way back.  My in-laws thoughtfully invited us to their superbowl party.  It is a good bet that that was the first time (and probably only time) my dad watched the superbowl.  We arrive a little early.  Muscle Whip (who isn't much of a talker) starts in on the snacks, while my dad starts chatting with my father-in-law. 
My father-in-law asks him which team he likes better.  I have to imagine my dad did not know how to respond to that and was trying to change the subject because the next words out of his mouth were: "So this morning I went for a walk by Weed's house and I tracked a momma coyote and her pups to their den."  His obvious glee at this discovery is difficult to conceal.  My father-in-law had no response for that.

Howesian-English Dictionary

Should you ever decide to go visit my family (and I strongly recommend you don't) you will find this reference invaluable.  My family has their own language.  For most of us it has fallen into disuse as we've gotten older, so my Howesian is a little rusty, but here's some words you should know if you want to communicate with those who still use it.....or if you want to know when you are being insulted.  This is how they came to my head, not alphabetically.
-Ginkers (n.) : poop
    Origin: (Ogden, 1976) My mom was offended by the word poop, decided to call them stinkers, Pooker pronounced them ginkers and it stuck.
    Usage: If you are a friend of mine and mad at me in 2nd grade (I'm not naming names, but you know who you are) you might stand up and announce to all the class "Hey everyone, Weed calls them ginkers instead of poop."
       Or like Nana in 1st grade, asked to use the bathroom and was told she needed to hold it.
        "But Nameless Jerk of a Teacher I need to go ginkers really bad."
        "Excuse me? What did you say?  What are ginkers?"
        "Uhh....I need to go feces really bad???"
 Seriously who tells a first grader to hold it?  She should have shat her pants.
syn. ginker, ginks
-Gas ginkers (n.) : fart
      Origin: see above.
-Pock (n.) : cat
syn. gwee, mao
-Oot (n.) : a mischievous or annoying person.
comb. form zockingoot , ootweiter, oothead
-Ort (n.) : a rotten person.
-Orted (adj.) : rotted
-Pooda (n.) : crap  <expletive>
    Usage: "Pooda! I burned the oyster dressing!"
-Zock (n.) : jerk
comb. form zockhead, zockweiter
-Zockery (adj.) : jerky, rude
     Usage: "What a zockery thing to do!"
-Durd (n.) : bird
    Usage:  "Those durds ate my sandwich."
-Borted (adj.) : misshapen
    Usage: Borted Jim (my dad's nickname)
-Bort (n.) : a lumpy person
-Wurny (adj.) : covered in worms
-Fweeb (n.) : fish, specifically baby guppies
    Usage:  There is a tank full of fweebs in the basement.
-Og (n.) : dog
    Usage:  Bad Og!  Often the d is found on the preceding adjective, so it is dropped.
-Tood (n.) : kid, baby
    Usage:  Who is toodsitting for you tonight?
-Weiter (suffix) : can be added to anything to make it infinitely worse.
    Usage:  Oh!  It is so stinkweiter in here!! 
     Also, my mom's flattering nickname Slugweiter
-Pob (n.) : toilet
    Usage: Did you remember to flush the pob?
-Poob (n.) : large, log-like poop
-Loob (n.) : diarrhea
-Stoob (n.) : sticky, pudding-like poop
-Floob (n.) : flatulence.  Also often used as an insult
     Usage:  You are such a giant floob, Weed.  Which is what my mom said instead of I love you at the end of our phone call discussing Howesian phrases.

And then there's a few English words we use more often than normal people.  Arse. Massive. Bairn.  Scurvy.  Mangy.  Anyway...you're welcome.

The Defendants

As I mentioned before, I have a large family, this helps with weirdness.  The smaller the family the lower the odds of having one quirky one.  When it comes to quirks, I won the jackpot family-wise.   My mother is from a small town in Indiana, she is an only child and her parents were both real 'pillars of the community' types.  She is well educated, has her Masters in piano performance, a doctorate in psychology etc.  How she came to meet and marry my father, a confessed hillbilly who grew up in nowheresville northern Idaho in a log cabin with an actual out house, is anyone's guess.  I think he's still unsure how it happened.  My mother is perhaps the biggest worrier in history, we'll get into that later.  My dad....I could do an entire post on my dad (and I probably will) and still not cover everything.  Together they had six children and adopted two more.  Then stopped...sort of. 

They never called us by our actual names.  We all had nicknames, so, for their privacy, and everyone else's amusement, that's how I will refer to them.  The oldest is adopted, we called her Gummy, she ran away from home a few times and got in trouble a lot.  At least that's my memory of it.  Next is Pooker.  My oldest biological sibling.  He has a skinny neck, large head and ears that stick out.  If there is a pun that might possibly be used, he will use it.  Next is Nana.  For a long time her nickname was Boney, for some reason she decided this was offensive when she was teenager and refused to answer to it.  I cannot fathom why.  Nana is very quirky, although she's also a little less laid back than my other siblings and might never speak to me again if I make fun of her too much.  Chronologically, I come next.  I was always Weed.  No, I'm not an avid pot smoker.  My parents claim it's because I grew like a weed.  I'm 5 foot 2.  So, who knows.  My little sister, Beadle, abhors her name, but she loves me the most, so I will relentlessly make fun of her.  Beadle was the source of a lot of the weird language we used, she has nicknames for everyone and everything.  She is competitive to a fault, but she is smart and funny to make up for it.  Beadle is probably the grayest of the black sheep.  Next is Sneet.  Sneet is funniest because sarcasm and humor are largely lost on him.  He is your typical computer nerd.  He likes fantasy and sci-fi, would gamely dress up for ComiCon.  He probably owns a sword. Next is O.R. Tire.  Don't ask.  I don't know.  O.R. is an artist.  For a long time his drawings reminded me of the liger on Napoleon Dynamite.

But he's gotten much better.  Although how often he showers hasn't.  Muscle Whip (ha ha, I'm just making up nicknames now) is the youngest.  He is also adopted, and we never had a good nick name for him, just his name shortened.  He is athletic, outdoorsy, adventurous, as far as I know has never read sci-fi or fantasy.  Another gray on the sheep scale.  Muscle Whip is Gummy's biological son.  Yeah, wrap your brain around that. 

Exhibit A: The Bidet

In my family's home there are three bathrooms.  One attached to the master bedroom.  One hidden away in the basement that only my brother's dare to use.  And one just off the entryway for everyone else.  Two Christmases ago I went home for Christmas (something I don't do often because it is nothing short of mayhem).  I went in to use the one usable bathroom in the house and this is what greeted me:

Hillbilly bidet

 

 

My father's homemade bidet.  I stood astonished for a moment or two, then decided I could hold it until I got back to the hotel.  I mean, if the president of the United States were to have an emergent need for a toilet and he happened to be in front of my parent's home, this is the bathroom he would be shown to.  Without a doubt.  My husband went in a few minutes later and came out and wordlessly retrieved his phone.  He texted this pic to all his buddies.  Their unanimous query in response is, "what temperature is the water?"  So he asked my brother's who were at that moment deep in a gingerbread train building contest.  They replied in unison, "cold."

 

For anyone interested in making their own bidet, I asked him for directions, this is what I got, instructions for making what he calls a hillbilly bidet:  https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B1O6Q5pL_7cTdzNUVjhSb2hKTDRMVVNWNWF1djBEVXhlNnpF/view?usp=sharing if not entirely helpful it at least adds fuel to my argument.