I hope everyone had a happy holiday season, and that Christmas brought them all the joy they were looking forward to. Mine certainly did. I’m not saying that everything went perfectly this Christmas, as when you ram a bunch of relative strangers together into a little space and tell them they have to get along, love each other, and be entirely interested in one another for hours on end there’s bound to be some sort of conflict. However, I decided this year that nobody was going to ruin my Christmas. Since I have so many jackasses in my family Since I have so many colourful characters in my family, so many shit-disturbing-loving loved ones, all who share the I-don’t-take-shit-from-nobody attitude, its only natural that the most beautiful, joyful time at some point or another will crumble into anarchy, if only temporarily. The problem is, normally I have an extremely hard time bouncing back. This year I decided that, no matter what jack-assery I encountered that my Christmas will be full of joy in my heart. As a result it was.

This song has always touched me, and I’ve always wanted it to be true…this year I figured out that this feeling comes from within, not from outside sources.

So kudos to the power of positive thinking, because lord knows there were some doozy’s this year. But we’ll just talk about one. She’s a special one. Hmmm, for the purposes of this story, we’ll name her Laura. Laura has been dating my Uncle for at least 15 years. We all know her well without knowing her at all. This is because, at first, she came off as extremely slightly snobby and standoffish. Except for the fact that she looked somewhat like my Uncle’s ex-wife and the mother of his child (one of my favourite cousins incidentally) I don’t think anybody understood what he saw in her. Either way, being the tolerant family that we are (and the fact that there wasn’t a damn thing anybody could do about it, really) we welcomed her prickly ass in with open arms, only openly making it known we would rather her get hit by a truck than make it to a family dinner once when she was too sick with the flu to come to one and my Aunt made some hilarious commentary about how much she will be missed, my Uncle definitely seemed more cheerful without Wino Laura nattering away, and although we managed not to outright cheer at her illness, everyone most definitely had a little extra pep in their step.

Yes, so within the past at least 5 years or so, Laura has become a raging wino. Like seriously, the woman takes one sip of wine and she doesn’t know how to act anymore. She becomes loud, abrasive, ignorant…she is the annoying drunk-off-her-ass lady at the bar whom you spend all night ardently avoiding eye contact with, lest she decide vou are her new best friend. Normally, she manages to stay sober at least until midway through dinner, when she has an excuse to take her few sips of wine and morph into Lush Laura, since everyone else is having a glass of wine she won’t look quite so pathetic and alcoholic-y when she starts gulping away at her glass(es). This year though, feeling more “festive” than ever, our dear Laura decides to start looong before she arrived at my Grandmother’s house for dinner. So she arrived filled-to-the-gills and ready to get the party started. This time, by the time dinner rolled around, she was SO intoxicated that her slurring, incoherent babble was only vaguely at times coherent. But, being used to her antics, with the exception of having to tolerate this nonsense for longer, this is really nothing new. But this year, she managed to TOTALLY blow me away…totally. And she’s done some pretty ridiculous crap. But this year took the cake.

Let me take the time at this point to mention that my family is very big on interracial relationships. With the exception of me, none of my cousins (or my baby sister, for that matter) have two black parents. Honestly, the term “interracial couple” didn’t mean a damn thing to me until almost high school because someone’s skin colour is so irrelevant in my family. Anywho, so our white almost-aunt-Laura decided she was going to become fascinated with the blackness (or lack thereof) of my family. She started with me: “OMG, Ruby, did you know you have, like NO ASS?!?!?! Like you don’t have any black ass at all, no bedunk-gadunk, no junk, no cushion for the pushin'” and various other sentences that mean the same thing. OK, yes Laura, you prick, it is something I happened to notice, what with being alive and gifted with sight for 25 years now (actually, my lack of black assness has always been the bane of my existence. Especially because my daddy’s got ass, and my mama’s got enough for about 3 people). Now, her bringing it up once, when she thought she was being cute and funny (and a dumb ass drunk) is one thing, but she must have told this story at least 5 times to each person in my family – at the top of her lungs, and like I was some freak of nature.

Like, thanks. But then she was ranting about how we’re an interracial family, and “how the problem with black people is…..” (I refused to listen to the end of that sentence, I actually ran to the washroom – remember, I was VERY determined that nothing ruin my Christmas, and whatever came out of her mouth might have ended in me decking her verbally at the very least) and the “well, of course, I know that since like, I might as well be black”. Ummmm…. no. Just no. Laura, stop drinking. Just stop. We’re probably not gonna like you anyway, since you’ve set a precedence that you’re an idiot for the past forever, and we’re not likely to give you a second chance after all this time and all of the ignorant, nonsensical things you have done. But seriously, just stop drinking, because if you remember the things you said (and I hope to GOD somebody tells you if you were in blackout mode as I suspect you very well might have been) you will be beyond mortified. My cousin (the one who has to see Wino Laura on a regular basis) is shocked that Laura can still face this family every holiday, and still has the nerve to act all hoity-toity when she’s sober at some daytime event. Like, seriously? My 15 year old sister can handle a glass of wine better than you can. And she knows her limit better than you do (she’ll normally drink maybe a 5th of a glass). SMH.

I swear, a this Family Guy scene was based on Laura and her lack of rationale…

I think everyone has a drunk in their family. I find it funny that we have one in ours, since my family, although known for their appetite, are also very enthusiastic alcohol consumers. We never get drunk and get on bad (well not at family dinners at least, we have some class and decency unlike the non-blood relative in question) so I guess with all of our behaving too properly on alcohol we had to import a drunk into our family so we could be normal and meet the status quo. Some people have entertaining drunks in their family though, the ones that are a little bit wild and crazy but are funny as hell. Some have MUCH worse ones, ones that end up homeless and near death because their alcoholism becomes all consuming. Mine isn’t funny and she isn’t an alcoholic (although from what I hear she might be well on her way now, but initially apparently this drunken raving was only happening at family get togethers) she’s just ridiculous and annoying, and honestly you can’t help but feel embarassed for her, but more for my Uncle. And boy do I feel sorry for my cousin. She’s a trooper boy, cause I don’t think I could do it.

Poor, poor drunken mess Laura. We wish her and my poor Uncle and Cousin all the best (and tolerance) in the world.

Cheers (non-alcoholically :-p)