SEEB married a wonderful lady who so totally does not deserve that the rest of her life is going to be spent being "related" to any of us freaks. She started learning that hard lesson 2 days before her wedding. I shall call her Long Suffering Woman (LSW).
The entire family flies east to SEEB's house for the wedding. That first night LSW brought home a "treat" (and their personal favorite) for dinner: loads of Popeye's Extra Hot Extra Spicy Extra Crunchy Chicken. We all begin chowing down and immediately spewing these compliments: "It's burning my gums!" "My lips are cracked and bleeding from the crunchy crust!" "I need water! My tongue is on fire!" "This stuff is horrible!" Etc. After many, long minutes of this incessant bitching and whining, SEEB sheepishly looks over to LSW and says "They are saying how much they love it, in their own way." Oopsies! Even I "got it" that we were being very rude for having Just Met LSW For The First Time Ever Two Hours Earlier! Oh, poor, poor LSW.
Next day we are getting to know each other a bit more. I am nursing a 3month old baby and brought an outfit for the wedding that for some unknown reason I had not tried on to see if I could even get into it. I gain 70 pounds whenever I am pregnant and this outfit is tight even when I am at my skinniest. Naturally, it does not fit. So we make do with a chain of paperclips and safety pins to "enlarge" the waistline. And every time I hear the baby make a noise my boobs sprout like the Trevi Fountain in Rome....torrents of milk soaking whatever I am wearing, down to my ankles. OH, and milk spewed "outward" too, all over LSW's hair. Nice. Now we have to get my silk outfit dry cleaned before the next morning's wedding. And buy some duct tape to strap down my boobs so they can't spew except when there is a baby attached to them. LSW decides she should stay "away" from me tomorrow once her hair is done and she is in her wedding clothes.
Then, to top the day off, my SEEB develops alarming symptoms: losing peripheral vision; dull, leaden sensation in chest and left arm; dizzy; nauseous; "hearing" buzzing sounds.......enough that Dad drives him to the hospital ER. Hours later in the late evening, with no phone calls or updates, they both come straggling back. During the extensive and Very Expensive tests and procedures, the doctors ask SEEB if he is under unusual stress of late. SEEB's answer? "I don't know. Umm, let's see: I am getting married tomorrow; my entire family has been living with us for the past 2 days; they have never met my fiancee before this; I haven't eaten since last night; and, oh yeh! My fiancee and I each got fired from our jobs in the past 24 hours." FUCKING DUH!!! The eventual diagnosis was: SEEB was having a "silent migraine headache." Gee, some $10,000+ in tests for a headache. LSW is the one who should have been having the headache but SEEB is the one running up the medical bills! I tell ya, women are the stronger of the species.
After the wedding, Pansy finds herself surrounded by friends of the wedding couple. She thinks "well, maybe they would like to hear SEEB stories." Oh, yessss.
Story #1: SEEB is a know-it-all high schoolian and had a running argument with Dad for an entire summer over this: Terminal Velocity. Dad explained it meant the fastest speed a falling parachutist could possibly reach...after which, no more acceleration was going to occur. SEEB vehemently denounced this idiocy by smugly showing up The Old Man with this logic: Terminal Velocity is the speed at which the falling parachutist will DIE. And that is why they pull the parachute ripcord. To avoid falling at a faster speed, which speed will keep increasing until they DIE. The more daring parachutists will push the envelope but that was only because they had fancier stopwatches to help them know exactly when they had to pull their ripcord. No amount of discussion could dissaude SEEB from this foolproof, castiron, extremely logical conclusion. And he did have the cred to back him up: he was President of The High School Slide Rule Club.
Story #2: SEEB was All About cowboys and indians and their horses as a young boy. One day a neighbor said: Good morning, Skippy. So! Are you Roy Rogers or Gene Autry today?
Outraged Skippy: I am Roy Rogers! Cain't you see Twiggah?
Neighbor: laughs heartily at "Skippy" sending him into a lifelong identity crisis highlighted with numerous massively debilitating depressive episodes.
Story #2 naturally led right into Story #3: The entire crowd of friends had NO IDEA that SEEB's childhood nickname was: Skippy! OMG! This just killed the friends, who had many a "Buffy" "Chip" "Scooter", etc. amongst them. And who had been roundly teased and mocked by SEEB for years over their Yuppie nicknames. And now they learn he is "Skippy"!? And, why "Skippy", pray tell? Because as a child he had been SO happy and cheerful and sweet that he literally skipped everywhere he went! hahahahhahahahahahaha! SEEB is, how shall I phrase it, NOT so "Skippy" as an adult. Much more bookwormish, serious and possibly "dour". Except that he really is funny. He is a Pansy Relative, you know.
Just after Pansy finished telling the "Skippy" story, SEEB joined our laughing little group, wanting to know how we were all getting along. When the crowd roared "Oh, look! Skippy has decided to join us!" he actually went beet red. SEEB broke up the little story-time gathering but Pansy managed to sneak around during the rest of the party and tell snippets of other stories. It was a great wedding reception party.
SEEB invented his own college major: Genetic Anthropology. Which wowed Yale so much it lured him away from California and all but gave him a Ph.D. So you would be led to conclude that he is smart. Maybe. Maybe not. Some years later we were all sitting around reminiscing over our various weddings. SEEB went on and on about the mountainside, the string quartet, the guests in their "hippie" clothing, etc. All fine and good and true......but that was the setting for his FIRST marriage. In California. NOT his marriage to LSW. In Noo Yawk City. LSW gave him the most scary Stink Eye Pansy has ever witnessed and a 3rd degree burning, scathing comment. Ahh, LSW has adapted very well to life with SEEB and his people.
LSW has chosen to keep SEEB, bore their one and only child, a son, who has been a good son. For son's high school graduation, SEEB and LSW threw a party not too far off the level of Coronation Of The Queen Of England. The third floor of a hoity toity restaurant completely swarming with SEEB people. Drinking SEEB people. Somewhere during the festivities it became mandatory to randomly shout "To SEEB Son" and everyone would slam down big glugs of wine. In a very short amount of time, poor SEEB Son, being merely a high school graduate, was the only sober one in the room. And don't you just hate it when you have to be the sober one in a room full of drunks? Finally, SEEB stands up to toast his Wonderful Son and makes it about this far: "My son is such a good son...." and fell into such a blubbering heap that half the rest of us burst into tears as well. Oh, great! Now it's a room full of not only drunks, but drunk SEEB people who are now also Crying! We screeched and yowled for a lot of hours at that restaurant. It was fun. The Queen missed a really good party. I already fear for son's college graduation and wedding events. Those are going to cost so much they will require both parents to take on paper routes. And that will barely cover the cost of hankies for the hordes of drunken, crying SEEB people.
SEEB is a good elderly brother. He taught Pansy all about horsemanship; bicycle repairs/maintenance; gave her rides to high school dances; never acted like he could not stand to be around her. The only negative part is that we are creepily identical twins. When we are skinny we just look like ME (that way we are prettier). When we are chubby we are totally Tweedle-Dee/Tweedle-Dum. I pick "Dee". He already is "Dum(b)".
Yeh,yeh, yeh. Hey! I warned you in my first blog post: this blog is only about Pansy Stories. Even the not profane ones.
SEEB on his pony, whom he named Prince before he even saw the pony. SEEB was so happy and cheerful and sweet and trusting and, well, "skippyish".....UNTIL he got a load of the promised "white stallion" parents gave him. SEEB will never trust anyone ever again.
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