Bad News Hughes

DIARY OF INDIGNITIES
Christmas 2005

I rolled up to Dad's place Christmas day, a little after lunchtime. As you can see, by the time I arrived everyone had already been hard at work fortifying themselves with colorful, potent little nuggets of holiday cheer.


I hustled to catch up.


This one burned a little more than I expected.


Down the hatch!


Bracing.


There were some booze-based food-snacks set out, too. Like this: cheese and nuts soaked in about a gallon of Kahlua. Seriously.


Later, there would be meat.


And, possibly, gunplay.


"This one's automatic," Dad says. Think he used that heater to jack Gary Busey's haircut?


Time to open some presents.


Someone actually recommended this book for Flo in the comments on one of my posts here, and Dad picked it up for her.




Victory!


I kind of don't dig all these creepy little glassy-eyed goblins and such that Flo puts all over the house. Is this even supposed to be Christmas-y? I just find it menacing. What's that weird knob? Is he hanging brain?


Craig got a chainsaw.


Seriously, does this seem like a good idea to you?


I was getting a 12-pack from a dusty corner of the garage when I accidentally knocked over some shelves and found the one set of photos of me Dad and Flo have hidden behind it and... Wait a minute...


Is that even me?! What the fuck, man. When was I ever tan? When was I Jeff Spicoli? I think they brought in a ringer.


I had to take a picture of this — Dad and Flo had actually worn the bottle opener down to a nub, to where you couldn't even use it any more. I was contemplating the implications of this while I grabbed a second bottle opener out of the silverware drawer, only to discover that, yes, it was worn down to a useless nub as well. Dad noticed my plight and fetched me over a newer one so I could get at the Christmas cheer inside. How many thousands of beers do you reckon you need to pop before one of those quits on you? Five thousand? Ten? A million?


Every year Uncle Bob and Aunt BJ make a Christmas quiz. Neil won it like four years in a row or something until last year, when I beat him after an initial tie and exciting sudden-death overtime finish. As you can see, this year I totally beefed. This was the hardest Christmas quiz you can imagine — I got four out of 20. Flo remarked that I "really disgraced" myself.


Some guy named Mac, who I'm not sure I'm related to, won it with nine out of 20. As a reward, he got to wear the elf hat.




I think he's Canadian.


Neil, clearly thrilled to have placed second.

The Three Stages of Jell-O Shot

Stage 1: Excitement.


Stage 2: The Burning.


Stage 3: Quiet contemplation.


No smoking in the house, Uncle Salty — you'll have to enjoy your pipe outside.


Craig looks on in admiration as Dad shows off his bourbon whiskey that was "made with Willie Nelson."


Stage 1: Deployment.


Stage 2: Euphoria.

'
Stage 3: THE BURNING


After supper Dad brought out the hats. He had been talking about it all day.


So everyone sat around drinking and talking and putting on all these hats.






Consequently, I ended up with about 6,000 photos of drunk white people wearing goofy hats.


Omar needs a little something to help him get through this.












I love her. Don't you? Dad said when he first met her she was swinging from the chandelier at this bar.


We also heard the story about the time some burly construction worker tried to heist $60 worth of booze from her in a parking lot. Instead of calling the cops, she grabbed his collar and jacked him up against the side of his car. He turned over the goods. Dude obviously had no idea what he was fucking with.


When I was 15 I was living with Dad and Flo and they forced me to get this job at a McDonald's. It sucked. After a week or so, this manager fired me because, as she put it, "You do everything we tell you fine, but if we don't tell you to do something, you just stand there." Dad and Flo gave me a huge ration of shit over it: "What kind of reason is that? Nobody gets fired for that! What did you really do?!"


After I got fired they sent me down there on Dad's old-ass rickety 10-speed to turn in my uniform and pick up my check. That bitchy manager wouldn't give it to me, saying it wasn't ready or something. After another week or two, Flo was running errands and drove me by the place to get it. She had picked up Craig and some other kids from school, and they were all screaming and jumping around the car like maniacs while I ran inside. Keep in mind I was still in the doghouse for getting fired.


So I go inside, and that cunt manager still won't give me the check. I can see the damn thing, not 10 feet away from the front counter, sitting on a desk in the office, so close I can read my name. The manager says she can't leave the front, because she's the only manager on duty. Even though the restaurant is almost deserted. I go back out to the car, where Flo is sitting impatiently while all those kids flail around and yell. I tell her what happened, and she grabs the uniform from me, barks "Wait here!" and runs inside. Through the window we watch as Flo grabs the manager around the neck, pulling her off the floor and half over the counter.

She gets the check. The kids are suddenly quiet.

Later, Dad and Flo went to war with McDonald's over my dismissal, which was suddenly viewed as some sort of epic injustice. The manager got transferred to Siberia and they offered me the job back, which — thank God — Dad and Flo refused to let me take. They still refuse to eat at that particular McDonald's, 21 years later.






This was making me nervous.


Neil, who wouldn't eat the salad because "it was too sweet," is drinking a glass of Kahlua, whole milk and Cool Whip.


Buried in one of those bags of hats was an old Batman costume Flo made for Neil when he was like six or something.


Me and Neil got a collection going to get Craig to put the costume on. It quickly got up to $21, but Craig, holding out for more dough, would only put the panty on his face.


Dad gets legitimately disgusted at Craig's greed and grabs the outfit, saying he'll put it on. He refuses the 21 bucks, too. Because, unlike Craig, he has a little something called artistic integrity.


I check on Dad after a few minutes of grunting noises. "Get the hell out of here, I'm not ready," he yells.


It is done.


AAAAAARRRGH WHY


I can still see it when I close my eyes.


Around these parts, it's just not Christmas until someone gets stripped down to their tighty-whities.


That was a lot to take in, so Craig decides to relax everyone by lighting off an M-80 in a beer can.


Later, some of Neil's pals show up with a radar gun, which we used to measure the speed of our punches and karate chops.


Frasier there is actually wearing the bat-panty around his neck as a jaunty ascot.


My jab registered a whopping 14 MPH, and for a while Frasier was in the lead with 25. Dad's turn, of course, rendered competition moot after he topped everyone with a terrifying 174 MPH blow.


Things wind down as Craig plays the video of Dad in the Batman costume. Here you can see where Craig zoomed in on Dad's burly nose hair.


Not long after, I tried to pass out, but Craig and Neil kept busting into where I was sleeping, throwing blankets and shit on me and yelling and shining a light in my eyes. I freaked out and threw a gigantic hissy fit, grabbing my presents and driving off into the night around 2:30 a.m. after lightly smashing Neil in the crotch with the flashlight. I woke up around 11 a.m. in a Best Western about a third of the way back to Gainesville; grumpy, disoriented and 68 clams lighter in the wallet.

Best Christmas ever. Seriously.

Previous Christmas fun here and here.

Labels: Diary of Indignities