Our holiday was cruising along nicely until the phone rang. First off you must know something about me – I hate the very existence of the phone. The ringing causes my back to bristle up. I. Do. Not. Like. To. Talk. On. The. Phone. When I do talk on the phone I’m immediately trying to come up with a reason I have to go. I’ll even make the fake scratching noise and say we must have a bad connection, totally PeeWee Herman style.
I hate it.
In all our holly jollyness of having my Mother In Law here and constantly reading my emails over my shoulder, what more could Christmas bring?
The answer: One Redneck and three hoodlums. My mom gave me a Redneck for Christmas. And she bent me over and stuck it in my ass. Totally on purpose. My mother and I don’t speak, we haven’t for years. Because she is such a bitch, that’s why.
I let the answering machine answer the phone. And the voice leaving the message was loud and redneck. You have to know one to really understand what I’m saying. It was my cousin. It was the day before Christmas. The message was simply, “Sabrina! If this is Sabrina get your big ass on the phone! Well, I just called to wish you all happy holidays.” And he used the term, “farting around” quite a bit.
This particular cousin has always had a fascination with the size of my ass. At my grandmother’s funeral he yelled at me to get my big ass in his car so we could talk. He actually addresses my ass as though it has it’s own identity. And at the same funeral, his children were running from grave to grave changing around the flowers.
I call him back, thinking I’m merely going to wish him and his family a Merry little Christmas. Oh, but no. This is where my mother has set me up. Redneck Cousin says, “Well, we was goin’ to go down and see your moms, but hell, she got some bullshit vacation from her boyfriend for $2000 and she’s heading to Vegas. That dumbshit boyfriend of hers is off ruinin’ everybody’s Christmas. So now the kids and I don’t have any place to go. Now that their moms and I are the big D (divorced) I want to get them out of Carson County. So, you got room for your ole cousin and his kids? Maybe if you park your ass outside, huh? Hardeeharhar!”
Fuck. And that’s when my skin fell off my body and my bones were all that was left standing there holding the phone. That’s when my mouth started doing this, “buhdebuahgetit” And somehow that in Redneck tongue means, “Hell yes! You just bring your whole damn family down here, I’ve got plenty of food and space! We’ll have a ball. Whoop!”
I hung up and then they arrived. In a Suburban. They all piled out. They came running and screaming into the house. My cousin standing outside to finish his cigarette. His youngest son, who could seriously go to Disneyland and not have to buy Mickey Mouse ears because his own ears are plenty, kept coming up to me asking me how much money we make. And almost instantaneously his daughter started telling me that my son was a total hottie. Maybe back where they come from 3rd cousin dating is OK, but not here in Collin County.
I kept telling myself that it was only less than 24 hours and they would leave. I was definitely going to survive this. But Redneck Cousin kept us awake for most of those 24 hours talking about racing cars and how he picks up cars with his towing company and then gets the titles and then sells them. And how it would be so cool for my kids to come up and spend a week with them because he could teach my son how to drive a stick.
It wasn’t until the next day that I noticed I picked all my eyebrow hairs out. By hand.
I got a Redneck for Christmas and all I wanted was a Kitchen Aid Mixer.