The Inaugural Red Neck-A-Thon 2011

Last weekend was the inaugural family reunion on my mother’s side, or as I would like to call it: Red Neck-A-Thon 2011.  It was held at my Uncle Sam’s, which meant driving ten hours to Calgary only to realize you need to drive another SEVEN HOURS to a place called BONNYVILLE which is a whopper of a town. It has TWO (count’em TWO) token Chinese restaurants. But we do not stop there. 10 minutes outside of this thriving community is a bison farm (those are buffalo for you city folks) and my Uncle’s is kitty corner.

Let me give you a glimpse into my mother’s brothers and sisters and you tell me if you still think your family is crazy.  My mother is the oldest of five children.  They grew up on a farm in southern Alberta.  Mom cannot remember ever having running water and the family pet was a cow named Betsy which they treated like a horse and rode around the farm. After my Mom comes my Uncle Elmer. Uncle Elmer is hilarious… if you think telling an 8 year old (i.e. me) that he lost all his fingers on his right hand by sucking his thumb is funny.  Let’s say I quit sucking my thumb cold turkey that summer.  He lives in the woods in Northern Alberta and has bought up all the land around him because people are really not his thing. 

Next comes my Uncle Sam who bears a striking resemblance to Yosemite Sam, drives a truck and has a Budweiser tattoo on his forearm. Uncle Sam hasn’t had a lot of luck with the Ladies.  His first wife had a son from another marriage (who I believe he is actually in jail now) and they had a daughter together.  He comes home one day to find the place was cleaned out and his wife and daughter were gone. But there was a note. “Have moved to Vancouver, I am a lesbian.”  So that was wife number one.  Wife number two also had a boy from a previous marriage, Skippy, who I believe my Uncle adopted. They then had Jean and Margaret, now in their early twenties.  One day my Uncle comes home to an empty house (I know, it’s a recurring theme) to find his wife had moved in with the neighbour.  There went wife number two. The latest woman is a LARP. Not sure if she thinks she is Maid Marian, but the idea of my Uncle in tights as Robin Hood is just disturbing.  However, I think her involvement paints a picture of what I was dealing with, personality wise. She has two kids in their early twenties from a previous marriage and they are just a bundle of JOY.  I should not say that, her son is nice enough.  But the girl, lets just say the ice pick was about to make another appearance.

Next is Aunty Sharon.  I love my Aunt dearly, but like the rest of the family she has her quirks, mainly she brings a new meaning to the word micro-managing. You would never know that Aunty Sharon grew up on a farm with chickens and dirt.  It seems more like she would have grown up on Manhatten’s upper eastside.  Aunty Kathy married Uncle Dave and they had Mark.  Mark is 14 and Mark got into trouble during Red-Neck-A-Thon 2011, which I’ll describe shortly.

Lastly is my Uncle Blake.  Oh where do I begin?! My Uncle Blake is big on precise directions and patience as my mother is fully aware.  His instructions consist of “go get the bull.”  Don’t all normal people know how to rope in a bull?  Yes, they teach that in grade 3 right after the 10 provinces and their capitals. Then, when something goes wrong, such as the bull running at you, and you move, his opportunity to display his famous grip on patience kicks in. It really is amazing how quickly blood can race to one’s head as he jumps up and down screaming at you for moving because now the bull got out. I am not sure Uncle Blake understands that small instinct to … you know … LIVE! Uncle Blake married my Aunty June who is the sweetest woman alive.  I can still remember the first time I met Aunty June.  We were driving out in the pasture to check something. She got out of the car.  Ants crawled up her pants so she rips them off.  A great first impression on a 5 year old.  Their children are Connor (17) and Chad (14)

The Midget (aka my sister) and I arrive at the farm to a very warm welcome.  We are told all of OUR family has gone fishing and that the LARP’s daughter’s dog eats little dogs and therefore our puppy Stanley needs to stay in the house.  A) Why do you have an evil dog? and B) Why is your daughter here??   The Midget and I being the problem solvers we are promptly turned the car around, found the nearest lakeside beach and started to drink. 

But really, that is nothing compared to the stunt my cousins pulled.  I guess when everyone had gone to bed on the 1^st night Chad and Mark took it upon themselves to raid the beer fridge and it did not bode well for young Mark. Chad being a farm kid, 6’2” and 220 lbs was not phased by the raiding.  Mark on the other hand might have puked in his tent and promptly passed out back into it.  You should know that Aunty Sharon and Uncle Dave are not cool with underage drinking.  They have gone so far as to convince Mark that he is allergic to alcohol and therefore should never drink it.  I am pretty sure we are all allergic to alcohol.  It is poison, correct?  Who is not allergic to poison?!  Plus anyone who drinks 3 ciders (7% alcohol content) and a few more beer to boot on their first drinking binge is going to be “allergic” all over their pillow.  The kicker (and I cannot believe that this flew with his parents) was that he told them he got sick off of candy!  Seriously?!  The Midget was all over that with “ya, when I eat too much candy I always puke and promptly pass back out into it!” The hilarious part is everyone in the family knew the kid was hung over but no one wanted to break it to his parents who seemed to have bought this “candy story.”  They did eventually clue in, but I’m not sure how. It may have been the family referring to the beer fridge as the candy fridge for the rest of the weekend.

Besides these shenanigans, the reunion was fairly uneventful.  There were just a few minor irritations like the LARP throwing a 5^th birthday party for a neighbour’s kid in the middle of the reunion and oh – and the simple presence of her daughter. Have I mentioned she was a less than desirable person – and FAT!  Yet, what was strange this time was the Midget’s and my role in the family.  As kids, we always wanted to stay up late and sit around the fire as the uncles drank and told stories. They were hilarious and oh sooo cool.  This time, they all headed to bed at a decent hour and the activities were pretty mellow.  Then one night Connor and his girlfriend emerge after his parents had gone to bed to drink with Skippy, Jean, Margaret and I.  I announce “Grandma needs to go to bed” and he looks at me and says, “Really, I was thought you would be the one to get the party going.”  This is the thing.  To my cousins, I am the cool uncle they want to hang out with – without their parents around.  It just keeps driving home this recurring theme I am struggling to come to grips with in 2011.  I am no longer the child. I am the adult. It really is an adjustment.

Even DJ Tanner had a Boyfriend!

So it is no secret that I am single. I’ve been single for a very long time actually. WAIT! Have I ever been in a relationship? Does an eight month period of dating count? Or hanging out? Sleeping with?  Does acting like a lovesick girlfriend, getting nothing in return and having him refuse to call me his girlfriend count? Let’s see: crying, emotional damage, reduced self-esteem …yep a relationship. Sad but this was also the longest of my so-called relationships. I never even had a boy hold my hand in high school.  Do you know what that does to a girl’s self-esteem? And I blame Hollywood for making it worse. Every pre-teen girl had a boyfriend in the movies. Even DJ Tanner had a boyfriend.  She wasn’t even that pretty! I assumed it was the fantastic ‘80s puff hair which, believe me, I spent hours and hours attempting to perfect. When the puff failed me, I took to praying every night.  I am dead serious. Every night in my prayers since the age of 12 I have prayed for a boy to like me. ANY BOY! Finally in my thirties I am starting to realize that my lack of standards may have led me into half-baked flings with many a suspect men  ... cough… douchebags! But when you pray every night for 6 years and finally at 18 years old the first boy you kiss ends up going out with the cougar with a 6 year old instead of you - you begin to think, well at least he liked me for just a moment.  At least I can now say I have been kissed.

I do not say all this because I am having some massive pity party about still being single.  I say this because I finally see the error of my ways.  I spent 18 years willing to settle for anything. Picking men that were players trying to make them like me because that would mean I was worth it, but not realizing they were self- involved pricks who when they lose their looks are no longer players but just creepy old men.  I ran into one of these failed conquests the other day and my first thought was “what was I thinking?” How quickly the slight chub in our twenties turns into “wow, is that just going to hang there?” I was floored! I made a complete fool of myself at a wedding once trying to get this man’s attention. In my defense, I was quite intoxicated and might have thrown a water glass at the head table thinking I was setting the glass down gently – or so I have been told.  There was no videographer so as far as I am concerned, this event was hearsay.

But that was not the only encounter that created this revelation.  In my dating history, which again is brief, I managed to have two heartbreaks.  The 8 month stint with the Coward which is a whole can of daddy issue worms on why I stayed in that one. But the one that really broke my heart started as a friend and one night after bottles and bottles of wine he leaned over and kissed me. What the hell?! Love! We had known each other for three years and launched into this euphoric relationship where he would write me emails about butterflies in his stomach over the excitement to see me. Total pathetic crap that I was just eating up!  We go away together and our first night together is amazing.  He cooked me a gourmet meal and we drank a few bottles of wine and well … you can see where this is going. Then the next day he breaks up with me. Might as well have hit me over the head with a frying pan. That would have been less of a shock.  I spent the next 3 hours by myself crying on the ferry home. This crushed me so badly that 2 weeks later on vacation with Hookah, I was still bursting into tears. Once at an internet café in nowhere-ville Turkey, the older proprietor who didn’t speak a lick of English brought us watermelon to make me stop crying.  Basically Gayboy ripped out my heart – it was awful. Oh yes, I should mention my fantastic friends thought he was gay.  In all seriousness, I thought this was the one.  The timeline was right and everything: meet at 25, marry at 27, kids at 30. HA! I guess I missed the boat on that one!  It destroyed me.  What the hell was the matter with me? Why did no boy want to date me? This never happened to DJ Tanner! Where is Uncle Jesse when you need him! Maybe he would date me? Yum!

However, I am glad to say that the world has its ways and unanswered prayers are sometimes a blessing.  I saw Gayboy two days ago walking down the street and despite ducking into the nearest building to avoid seeing him (I really did not think I was looking my cutest that day –  please do not mistake my vanity for caring) my only thought was – Thank GOD for unanswered prayers.  Now married, he’s not openly gay, but he is balding (make that bald). This is despite having hair EVER WHERE else, bad posture and being slight in the shoulders.  What was I thinking? 

It took me some time to learn lessons my lessons with men. I will concede, I was definitely on the short bus. I have finally gotten some self-esteem when it comes to men – and the proof is in the pudding.  After a football match two weeks ago, a guy ran up a hill to pick me up. I mean literally ran up the hill. Flattering!  He was average cute and chatted me up for a few blocks before giving me his card. Another football match took place today so I thought I would text him letting him know he could buy me a beer. I thought this was quite the cute cheeky text message.  His response was just plain dumb: “I’m pretty sure I was racing my friend up the hill…I was pretty drunk. I can’t tomorrow.”  What was the point of even responding?  But despite this, whatever it is, the old me would have texted back trying to make something happen, instantly reverting into my needy thinking that any attention is good attention.  Instead, without even a second thought, I laughed and thought “Wow, buddy. Way to destroy your chance!”

I maybe single at 31 where my best prospect is a gentleman from overseas whose idea of romance is sending me video clips about cricket. No joke, the English are a bit touched when it comes to women. How they manage to keep up their birth rates considering their male population’s inability to approach a woman is an act of god.  Therefore, if you are with me about unanswered prayers, join me in rocking with Beyonce - the best thing I never had! Seriously, she can do no wrong.