Labor Day, In-Laws and A Farm

Day One:

This weekend, we went brother in-law's new farm in Southern Indiana for a family get together. My brother-in-law has a shit load of kids, so the farm is really a goddamn redneck "petting zoo". Let me tell you what they had to offer my family in lieu of smelly ass cows:

Four-wheelers
Climbing wall
Camping
Bonfires, complete with exploding rocks (I'll explain later, asshats)
2 labs and one very neurotic fucking chihuahua.
An unknown number of cats
One enormous, disgusting pot-bellied fucking pig named Marie (Donny died a few years ago)
Chickens that look like Don King. I don't know what kind of goddamn chickens they are but they have afros.
Archery (my son was very into this. At first, we all fucking scattered..the dogs, me, Duke, everyone. Turns out, he's actually pretty good)
Horses
Donkeys
Enormous piles of shit everywhere that city boy Duke managed to step in... every five goddamn minutes.

On the ride down, Spawn of Satan had a few questions for me. He and Duke think I am all knowing about farm shit because I grew up on a horse farm in Texas from junior high age until I was 23.

"Mom, do they have cows?" While I'm sitting there trying to remember what brother in-law told me, because I apparently think this is a perfectly normal fucking question.

Duke giggles and says, "Babe, he's been watching that Jackass show he wants to go cow tipping."

SoS gets the stink eye from me and quiets down.

10 minutes later:

"Mom, do they have goats?"

"You can't tip a goddamn goat, SoS. jesus christ on a fucking cracker, boy."

"No, but I saw that they're fun to wrestle. Have you ever seen anyone wrestle a goat?"

"Goat wrestling? Fucking Goat wrestling?? Holy shit, you're serious. My son wants to be a goddamn goat wrestler." He will never watch that Jackass movie again.


When we pulled up into the driveway, my sister in-law met us outside. After we hugged, she told me she had to one of the nieces, to the emergency room.

"What happened?"

"Oh, she jammed a stick through her foot while four-wheeling barefoot, which is one of our many no-no rules. We're gonna go get stitched up and when I get back, I'll cook out."

"Holy fuck. Okay, well while you're doing that, I'll go have my stomach stapled and then I'll come back and knit a fucking boat tarp."

She carried my niece to the car and turned to say something to me. I was too busy stepping in a hole and twisting my fucking ankle off of my goddamn foot to hear her.

"Well, get in the car, dutchess, maybe we can get a group deal" my SIL says. She's a real fucking hoot.

I was only able to carry my gallon of vodka and box of wine from the car, which I immediately started drinking to ease the goddamn pain. I don't remember much after that.

Day Two:

Duke slept on the floor next to my bed to make sure I didn't try to navigate the farmhouse stairs in the middle of the night to go wrestle a goddamn goat.

When I woke up, I asked him to cuddle with me. He obliged, but it didn't feel enough like a burrito for my liking.

"Hold me closer, tiny dancer," I mumbled. I was still fucking drunk.

"What?"

"You know. The Elton John song. 'Hold me closer, tiny dancer'."

He thinks about this for a moment and then says something that will make me laugh every time I think about it for the rest of my fucking life.

"Honey, this is really embarrassing, but all these years the closest thing I could make out of that line was, 'Hold me closer, Tony Danza'."

Now, I know now that this is a common enough mistake, common enough that it was made into a goddamn t-shirt, but my poor Duke honestly didn't know that. The look of embarrassment on his face was proof enough and I laughed like a mad woman.

While I'm laughing at his mistake, he says, "It's not that goddamn far-fetched. He's gay, isn't he?", which causes me to seize, fall off the bed and break my body.

When I finally calmed down, he said, "Don't tell anyone about that."

"Ok, sweety, I won't."

Later that night, My BIL is building a bonfire and I'm getting drunk with my SIL and her best friend. The three of us climb the hill, drinks sloshing everywhere because:

A: We're drunk
B: We can't see shit. We're in a valley and it's muhfuckin' dark out there.

When we get to the top, I learned a very important fact about bonfires: rocks explode if they get hot enough. The take off like goddamn bullets at a certain temperature.

You could tell who was from the city because we all ended up face down in the goddamn dirt, cowering like it was perfectly possible for MacDaddy Hayseed and his gang to pull a drive-by on the goddamn farm.

A good time was had by all. SoS had to be forcibly removed from the goddamn four-wheeler and shoved into the car. The Duke got to babysit me and make sure I didn't maim myself while stumbling drunkenly through the weekend, which, lets face it, is always fun.

Finally, a musical tribute to the weekend
Ode To A Labor Day Weekend
(sung to the tune of The 12 days of Christmas)
At the Labor Day Party I look up and I see...
12 sheriff deputies,
11 drunken neighbors,
10 burned up steaks,
9 children screaming,
8 hornets buzzing,
7 grills on fire,
6 naked swimmers,
5 Foot bonfire flames!!!!!!
4 in-laws bitching,
3 barking dogs,
2 stopped up toilets,
and my husband smirking at me.