quiet_tiger | Why do people say stupid things?

The man my aunt is married to is an absolute idiot. My dad refers to him as "Asshole" when he talks about him. He just is. He's one of those people that will BS with you about something, and he'll sound legit, and then he'll just say one thing wrong, and you'll realize he's totally full of it. He's never really done this with me because he doesn't know a lot but what I like to do, but he takes stuff that he knows my dad is into and try to talk to him about it, but since my dad knows a lot about the stuff he does, he's hard to bullshit, but this guy tries anyway, and just comes out looking like a fool. For example, he's tried to convince my dad about facts about knots, and my dad is an expert at knots, knowing how to do them, their history, and what to use them for (yeah, my dad knows a lot of useless crap, I mean, how often do you need to use complex sailing knots?). So, why try to pull a fast one on my dad when the odds of him not knowing something are slim? He does the same thing with hunting and fishing, two things my dad has done since he was a kid, and that the guy knows nothing about. I'm sure everyone knows someone like this, where you want to just smack them and say, "What the hell are you talking about?".

But anyway, the guy comes over to me at the reunion today to say hi, and he calls me "hunter." Like, as some sort of nickname, like you might call a kid "sport" or "tiger." But... where the fuck did "hunter" come from? I'm not a boy, nor a dog, nor do I hunt (I've been out, but only once or twice as a father-daughter thing). So... was he trying to be cute? Funny? What? It's not something he's ever called me before, thank God. But if he does it again, I'll put a stop to it. Or at least ask what the hell he's talking about.

And, this next part absolutely kills me. He knows I fence, and he came up to me today to ask if my grad school has any fencing, but he didn't ask it like that, he made this stupid hand gesture that he thinks looks like a fencing stance, and he uses the word "touche" to be cute about it (picture an accent mark above that e).

I wouldn't mind that if he knew how to pronounce the goddamn word. He pronounces it "touchy" rather than "tooshay." I mean, what? The word, while it's French, is a part of English vocabulary for one reason or another; people always joke around with "Engard! Touche!" when fencing with sticks or forks or something. But, imagine this dude that you already think is a dim bulb pronouncing a word just completely ignorantly. It's amazing, the way it makes you feel so bad for him.

And then, wow, my grandmother was in a mood today. Her sister has a bunch of fairly young grandsons, two of whom were there today, and they instigated a water balloon fight because they're like eight and ten or something like that, and they're boys, and they do things like that. And wow, my grandmother (their grandmother's sister) was just on their case about throwing water around. Any time she saw one of them with a balloon inside the pavilion, rather than outside, she would jump on their case. She actually told the ten year old to "grow up." He's ten!!! What, does she want him to do her taxes or something? With all the griping she does about kids growing up too fast nowadays, you'd think she's appreciate boys being boys, rather than shooting heroin or getting someone pregnant (not that they could do the latter yet, but you know what I mean). And then she told me that she likes kids, but doesn't want to be bothered by them. Well, then, gee, you must not actually like kids too much since to a grown up, kids are often a bother. Usually not too badly, but they're still underfoot or on your mind or something, but that's what they do. If your kid just sat and stared at the wall, you'd want to get him or her checked out.

And what really bothers me is that they aren't her kids or even her grandkids. They're one of the furthest relations at that party today. And those boys are going to remember her griping at them. And as a result they aren't going to like her too much. Yeah, the kids are a bit wild. But geez, they generally stayed away from the adults when the adults wanted them to stay away (one adult joined the water fight, and my dad almost drowned the younger boy with his water bottle while the woman held him down- it was pretty funny), and it was a party, and nice weather, and no one else had a problem with them. Maybe my grandmother is better with girls, I dunno. Give me a break. I've always known my grandmother is a bit of a loony, but sheesh. It's water, not paint. It'll... wash out. Or, like, dry.

Is it horribly improper English to begin every other sentence with "And"? It's how I continue my thoughts with writing freely like this.

So, those are just two members of this family. All kinds of other weirdness. I am so familied out right now.