My Wacky Family

I consider myself to be a fairly unexceptional person, boring even. I've never really 'acted up' in my lifetime. I was never grounded as a kid. The only time I skipped school in high school was when my teacher gave me permission to, and I went to get ice cream with a friend. I didn't drink before I hit 21 - with the small exceptions of when I was in France and it was legal and champagne and wine with family. Even now I don't really drink either. The closest I've gotten to doing drugs is smoking hookah (the flavored tobacco aka legal kind) at a friend's place while she smoked the less legal stuff. In high school, my friends with uber strict parents loved me because as long as my name was mentioned they were allowed to go out. In elementary school I told my parents we couldn't skip school to go skiing on a Friday because I had class.

Pretty boring / ultra nerdy right?

What makes up for my boringness is my wacky family. My parents are both really successful now, but in high school.... not so much. My dad ans his brother rigged the P.A. system once to repeat the morning announcements over and over and over. My mom used her science book to reach the top shelf of her locker, and not much else. When I got my drivers license my relatives informed me that should I ever get in an accident and wreak my car, that I should remind my dad of the time he landed his car in the middle of a corn field to put things in prospective. My mom told me she won the miss future secretary of America prize after being given the answers ahead of time from her teacher.

Growing up was pretty interesting too. For my birthday and Christmas when I was young, my godparents both tried to outdo one another in buying the most annoying gift for me - annoying that is for my parents. Lights and annoying sound producing toys were fairly common, but the prize went to the six foot long stuffed pink snake.

My dad and I are planning to compile stories into a book called "how to raise chidren," which is supposed to be an ironic title to a book of stories about all the weird ways in which my dad brought me up. When I was a kid and my dad wanted to run errands, he would pull up to MacDonald's, hand them my baby bottle and have them fill it up with a strawberry milkshake. If he went to one particular place, they used real strawberries and the seeds would plug up the bottle just enough so that I could contentedly suck away on the bottle for the whole day without complaint. Every once in a while kids come by my dad's office now while visiting their parents at work. For a couple of years he worked on teaching this one kid how to light a lighter. I think the kid was around 6 when he figured it out, and his parents learned what my dad was doing. He also managed to convince kids that getting rubber bands shot at them was fun.

I was on vacation once on a house boat in the Thousand Islands with my parents and friend and we heard a dog barking. Only we were in the middle of nowhere and there were no dogs around. Turns out it was my dad, on the roof of the houseboat barking. Probably the funniest thing about my dad is that he looks really serious. He's the owner of his own company, most often is seen wearing suits and sun glasses - for a while my first year roommate was convinced that he was CIA.

As for my extended family.... there's my uncle with a metal plate in his head, my uncle that likes to hitch up the trailer that I sleep in when visiting my grandparents and drive it around while I'm still asleep when he thinks that I've slept in too late. I have an uncle that's an NRA member. I have an aunt who likes to get drunk with my mom, among others.

I'm going to try and think of some specific stories to tell.
Too tired right now, and should be getting back to work.

sleep deprived - N