Here's the thing: I come from a big ol' Irish family. The biggest thing I would say that is among all of us is that we can sure tell a tale. The story could be that Uncle Joe went to the store to get bread and they were out. It turns into Uncle Joe had to driving through DRIVING WINDS AND HAIL and then got to the store and the manager came out and yelled at him because he knew the guy that Uncle Joe worked with from the electric company, who said Uncle Joe was a jerk. Well, turns out that guy said that because he was clinically insane. So, really there was no bread but there is no telling what the crazy guy's manager friend did before Uncle Joe got to the bread aisle. Oh. and the cashier revealed that she has gout.
It's something my cousin Sara (featured in pic) and I talk about all the time. We talk about it with fondness, and irritation, and make every attempt to not do it although I would imagine we fail terribly, and it is simply karma that we will tell our kids outrageous stories about her growing up in New Hampshire and battling 10 feet of snow, and me in New York battling...uh...the mob?
Yeah, that's it; the mob!Well, I don't know what got me thinking about this, but I started to think of all the little things that have been told over the years in our family that have gotten quite mythological in nature. Here are my top favorites.
1. Grandpa said he was a terrible person.
Our family is Irish Catholic, meaning that we have giant guilt attacks over small things and blow them into giant, God-smulching
acts. Grandpa, who was the patriarch and leader of telling an entertaining tale, would look at Sara and I and say, very seriously and rather cryptically, "Pray for your grandpa. He's done some bad things". We would both promptly burst into laughter. My grandfather was many things- an excellent host for a party, a chocoholic, a purveyor of fine port and smokes; a mysterious guilt-ridden sinner he was not. Especially because he, like many in our family, had OCD, and had to tell everybody every "bad thing" he had done. "I ate the last of the ice cream, ma," he would tell my grandmother, somber and contrite. "You bozo!" she'd laugh.2. Mom said she had a glass eye.
I was quite little and I was on my mother's lap. She proceeded to rub her eye and it made some sort of squeak noise. I asked why. She looked at me and said very seriously, "Honey, mommy has a glass eye." It was ridiculous. I was very concerned though, for my mother had obviously lost her eye in some sort of accident. "Do you take it out?!" I demanded. "How long have you had it?" She then told me she was kidding, but the damage was done. I eyed her eye suspiciously for about a year.
3. Aunt Eileen claims that if you get your tongue pierced, you could get tongue cancer.
Aunt Eileen is Sara's mother. Sara had her nose, ears and bellybutton pierced at various times, which I believe Auntie Ei also assigned those appendages a horrible mutilating disease if she pierced them. I guess if she went to the trouble of coming up with these consequences to convince her daughter not to get them, she did not appreciate Sara and I arguing with her about the medical validity of her claims.
4. Mom and Dad claim that I will be spotlighted while bowling.
Ok, this one really gets my goat. I was really nervous about going bowling for the first time (I don't know why, I was a nervous kid, okay?) My parents asked me if I would be okay when the guy on the loudspeaker announced my name and everyone turned to look as I bowled. 'Nuff said. I spent the entire time waiting to be "called out", and then was oddly disappointed when I was not. It's the yin and yang of my horoscope of Leo.
5. Sister makes claim of eventual pig nose.
My second grade teacher, Mrs. McAuley, blew her nose in an interesting way. She would forcefully blow, and then move her fingers around in her nose with the tissue, clearly removing all debris and making it squeaky clean. I appreciated the habit and began to do this myself. My sister Meg apparantly thought this was WEIRD and told me, "if you do that, even for like a little while longer, you are going to have a giant pig nose. And it will never go back." I was horrified but could not go back to just blowing and wiping without getting the internal refuse. Well, I'm going to be 30 in a month, and NO PIG NOSE MEG. YET. (though I did stop with the circular cleansing motion. It was a tad weird."
6. Aunt Maryann.
Aunt Maryann is my Aunt who is the eldest sibling on my mother's side. Therefore, she has the dubious distinction of having the longest time for all her punk-ass little brothers and sisters to make up stories about her. Including:Aunt Maryann WRAPPED A CAR AROUND A TREE. (It's always said with an emphasis that would make you believe she seriously performed some feat of physics). She banged a car up when learning to drive is what the story really is.
