A long time ago during the turn of the millennium, I was in high school. During this time I lived in Germany with my family. Our familial matriarch bestowed on us the most wonderful visit. It only took around 48 hours to send her back on a plane to the United States via red-eye and wave a jovial good riddance from the airport parking lot around 1 am. The woman I am referring to is my grandmother. Yes, you might ask, “What the hell does this have to do with twins?” or “Who the hell stone cold sends an old lady back in the middle of the night?” Well it has a lot to do with trying to raise a functional family while coming from a comically painful dysfunctional one.
The story begins like this:
One day my grandmother “Kitty” asks my mother “Frankie” if she will go to the store to buy her a six-pack of coca cola from America. This was almost impossible because we were in Germany. A little background info on Kitty. She is a 4’11” white haired woman who wears lipstick along with pjs and enough jewelry to rival anyones Bubbie. She wears heels daily which if she had the chance, would most likely stab someone with them Tawny Kitaen style. She loves Dick Cheney, Jesus, and America.
My mother determined to please her mother in law began her quest to find American high fructose corn syrup laden coke or be damed. Frankie found a store and drove a half hour. She returned with 2 liter bottles of coke not cans. “That bitch.” I’m sure is what Kitty thought of when she saw the plastic bottles not cans strapped together with deer dumpster killing plastic. Kitty confronted Frankie for not getting exactly what she wanted. Things escalated quickly and Kitty beat Frankie with the bottles of coke. Yes, you just read that correctly. My grandmother beat my mother with 2 liter bottles of coke simply because she wanted cans. Obviously liters of coke are the devil. Shrieks of craziness echoed through our house and in comes my father “Big Bear”. He was madly disappointed because this was not the first time Kitty was domestically abusive over such frivolous things. So to say the least he decided enough was enough and ordered me, a 15-year-old scardy cat to pack her things for her. He put me and her in the car and drove her to the airport, bought a red-eye, and bye Feliciaed her ass all the way back to the swing state of Florida. I was relieved. She was terrifying.
Fast forward and I am a 29-year-old mother of Fraternal twins just trying to figure it out. Like any mom I think the world of my children. I am trying to navigate between a cluster fuck of mommy advice columns, books, blogs, and social media and figure out what is the best for my kids. I am trying my damnedest to raise my beautiful children in functional household when all that I know is a dysfunctional one.
There are many more stories like this about Kitty and sure many more are to come. She doesn’t scare me anymore, because as an adult I have realized she is probably insane. I look back on the many times we kicked her out of our house during her visits as comical. I actually just saw her the other day and she gave me six different copies of the National Enquirer because “You should know whats really going on the world.” My favorite so far is about how Bruce Jenner was tortured over a sex swap surgery.
Cheers,
B
One Potato Two Potato 