Kathy Gets a Vibrator

Last night, we were all in the kitchen. Lindsay was cooking, Sara was not offering to help, Mom was listening to Bill O’Reilly rant about unpatriotic shrimp (or something. We’re not sure. We’ve gotten pretty good at tuning most of it out), and Dad was telling Lindsay all about the Mongolians, whether she wanted to hear about them or not. Pretty typical week night. Some family friends called, who had just returned from a big trip around the world. Mom and Dad decided that the best idea was to answer on speakerphone (even though we have 2 separate phones so they could each talk on their own headpiece) and have a loud conversation in the kitchen, competing with the TV and kitchen fan for noisiest thing in the room.

Sara: Why in the actual fuck do they have to talk right there? They have a whole house to talk in and they picked the one room that’s already noisy.

Lindsay: Because they’re Mom and Dad. They're getting old and people get weirder as they get older. I don’t know why you continue to expect them to be normal.

Dad: What?

Lindsay: Sara thinks you guys are talking too loudly.

Sara: And you don’t?

Dad: I own everything. I can talk as loud as I want wherever I want.

Sara: Doesn’t make you any less of a butthole.

Later, the subject of cleaning came up. With so many of us in the house, it can get messy very quickly. We all help out in some way or another, but occasionally someone tries to use it as leverage in an argument…and by someone we mean Dad, and by occasionally we mean constantly.

Dad: Who do you think is the one that keeps the house clean?

Lindsay: Certainly not Mom, as much as she’d like to believe otherwise.

Dad: ME! Although your mother does clean. She just does it in spurts. She’ll go a week without doing anything and then clean everything in a day.

Sara: Me too! That’s why I never clean as I go. I like to do it all at once.

Lindsay: Yeah, me too. I'm like someone with Parkinson's running. Once I start I can't stop.

Obviously, after that politically correct comment, we decided it was a good idea to start writing things down.

Sara: Mom’s not going to like this next blog post. She’ll probably yell at us for being terrible daughters and tell everyone how awful we are, as usual.

Lindsay: Mom gets mad at everything. It’s like she has dementia. She just yells at shit for no reason.

Sara: Dude, could you imagine how much it would suck if she actually got dementia?

Lindsay: Wow, way to be a Debbie Downer.

Sara: No, I don’t mean in the actually sad way. I mean for us. Do you have any idea how much louder she would be all the time?

Lindsay: She'd be like Dad asking us the same things over and over again, only angry. 

We’re not entirely sure why degenerative neurological disorders kept coming up, but we’ve agreed that it’s definitely not a good sign. But the most disturbing part of the night, by far, happened at the dinner table.

Mom: So I got a vibrator today.

<Horrified silence>

Dad: <while walking away> Oh my god Kathy…

Sara: That is the worst thing I’ve heard all day.

Lindsay: I heard this already.

Mom: Don’t you want to see it?

Sara: This can’t be happening right now.

Mom: Oh calm down. It’s a special vibrator for my hand; it helps break up the scar tissue. My physical therapist told me I could go to The Love Package* and buy one or just use theirs, so I took theirs.

Jesse: Oh thank God…

Sara: We were eating, WHY would you do that while we’re eating?! That was one of the worst moments of my life.

<Mom laughs all the way back to the computer>
*She meant Lovers, the store formerly known as Lover's Package. Another shining example of Mom's ability to remember names of things. 


For the record, we would love to see our mother go into an adult store and tell the cashier the vibrator she just bought is for her hand.

"Give me your hand and I'll change your life"

The Bowyer women like to think of ourselves as strong, independent, and driven. Depending on whom you ask, they may either agree or suggest a different, ruder word to describe us. But whether you think we’re more like Oprah or a James Bond villain…well to tell you the truth, we don’t really give two shits what you think. Our point is that we don’t exactly have the most normal or romantic of relationships. We don’t have the patience for most of that bullshit.

For example, Mom gave Dad a call in mid-August.

Mom: Is it the 17^th today?

Dad: Yes ma’am!

Mom:...wasn’t our anniversary last week?

Dad: Yes ma’am, I believe it was!

Mom: Hm. Anyways, will you pick up my prescriptions on your way home today?

That’s how they’ve celebrated their anniversary every year for the past 27 years. We know, it’s a beautiful love story. Go ahead and get a tissue, we’ll wait.

You might be thinking that, since they’re still kind of sort of newlyweds, Lindsay and Jesse are at least a little more traditionally romantic. Their favorite way to spend a Friday night is to buy a 12-pack, get in their sweatpants, and play Lego Batman on Xbox.

So…you were wrong.

In fact, Lindsay and Jesse are almost reversed in their roles as husband and wife. Lindsay sent Jesse off to his friend’s bachelor party in Vegas with a wallet full of 1 and 5 dollar bills, because…

Lindsay: What the fuck is the point of going to Vegas if you don’t go to a strip club?

Conversely, Jesse likes to annoy Lindsay by being overly affectionate in public.

Lindsay: Jesse. Stop it. There are people around.

Jesse: If loving you is a crime, then I’m guilty as charged!

Lindsay: Gross.

Sara, the only unattached member of the house (holla back, single ladies!), somehow has the worst reputation for not having the patience for romanticism. The last boy (a.k.a The Biscuit) that Sara brought home received a very warm, comforting greeting:

Mom: So has anyone told you that Sara has no soul?

Sara: *In an angry whisper* Shut. Up. Mother.

The Biscuit: …excuse me?

Sara: Nothing! Now let’s get going, hm?

Later, when they hadn’t heard anything from Sara about good ol’ Biscuit, they asked.

Dad: What happened to that guy you went out with?

Sara: Eh. Not much.

Dad: That lame, huh?

Sara: No, not at all. He was just too nice.

Mom: What do you mean?

Sara: He wouldn’t let me pay for dinner and then tried to hold my hand.

Mom: So…basically he tried to be a gentleman and treat you to a nice date?

Sara: Yes, and it was SO irritating.

This Sunday night, we had our usual family dinner. Barbecued ribs, sweet potatoes, and grilled peaches. Yeah, we know. You’re jealous. We would be too!

Dad (for the 3rd time): Sara, do you want a peach?

Sara and Lindsay: No!

Dad: Jeez...you don't need to be so snotty!

Mom: Well you ask the same thing over and over!

Dad: *pauses * Give me your hand and I'll change your life.

Mom: What?

Dad: I want to kiss your hand!

After a brief scuffle during which there was a lot of yelling and loud noises, Mom offered Dad her hand. He grabbed it and kissed it, but apparently grasped onto the post-op scar on her hand.

Mom: Ouch!

*Lindsay and Sara snicker*

Dad: I was being a romantic!

Later, after we stopped laughing our faces off at Dad’s “I’ll change your life” comment, we wrote down a rough draft of this blog. If we don’t do this, we usually don’t remember the conversations for later. It’s pretty disappointing, actually, how many other hilarious things have gone undocumented. Maybe we shouldn’t drink so much?

Pfft. Like that’s ever going to happen.

So we had Mom read through our rough draft, and she had this to say:

Mom: You know he didn't actually grab my scar. I just said ouch.

Lindsay: Why?

Sara: To be a bitch.

Mom: *nods in agreement.*

And in conclusion but completely unrelated, Mom still can’t manage to get even the most prominent of names correct:

Mom: Well I didn't get to watch Chris Wallace today and I didn't watch Huckabee because he had Justin Beaver's Mom on.

Guest Post by the House Dragon: Pt. 2

We let our Mom write another blog post. We won't tell you where, or edit anything...but she did take some creative license/has a reconstructive memory (Sara: Yeah. She took creative license. More like she slandered me as an ungrateful, lazy drug addict, then promoted mixing opiates and alcohol. But I digress...). She was on pain pills. Also, her idea of taking care of her family is drinking wine and Lindsay cooking dinner.

I wrote a blog post about my family's treatment of me post surgery and the whiny, angry girls didn't post it, enen though they advertised on the blog that it would be next. Now that I'm out of my splint and can actually type using my right hand, it all seems useless to relive the nightmare.

My mother-in-law flew up from Arizona to take care of me and make sure Brock had food to eat, and she was the bright spot. Dolores cheerfully shuttled me to the doctor, the hand therapist, and any other errand I had to do. Dolores helped me shower and dress and do my hand exercises. And...family...take note. She did not sigh. She did not roll her eyes. She did not say "now?" Dolores is my favorite!

I spent a month hiding my pain pills. Everyone wanted me to share. I could barely open a drawer, but I took the pills out of the bottle and put them in a jewelry bag and hid them underneath my hand therapy exercise papers. If I had left the pills in the bottle, they would have been gone!

After about 2 weeks I was strong enough to begin fooling around in the kitchen, however using a knife was a challenge. So Brock cheerfully volunteered to be my sous chef. After 5 minutes of chopping veggies for dinner, Brock said,"this is a lot of work. My hand is tired. How much more of this do I have to do?"
So much for cheerful.
I said, "Honey, this is what I do every time I make dinner."
Brock replied, "Wow, I didn't know."
How does he not notice?!

A side note: Lindsay and Jesse were house-sitting and not around on a regular basis to help out, or Lindsay would have stepped up to the plate. Sara is 22 and too worried about where her next drink is coming from to care...also she was one of the people trying to pilfer my pain pills. I think she has a problem.

I couldn't open a bottle of wine. Neither could anyone else unless I asked 18 times. And then after much eye rolling and "do I have to do it now?", I would get an open bottle of wine. And we all know how important that is. It enhances the pain meds.

Another irritation: I had about 25 stitches in my hand for 14 days. When the stitches were removed the incision in my palm split open and I literally had a hole in my hand, which was quite gross and I became the new circus attraction. When friends, mailman, UPS delivery person, etc. came to the house, my caring and nurturing family would say to the poor person who came over, "Want to see my Mom's/wife's hand? It's really gross! Mom/Kathy, show them your hand!" The person at the house clearly doesn't want to see and I don't want to show, but they keep insisting until I take the dressing off and the person looks at it, and then turns green, turns away, and you can hear their stomach turn in disgust.

I'm so glad the hole in my hand is nearly healed. I can't make a fist yet and will need some more therapy, but I'm cooking dinner, making soups for the winter, and as usual, taking care of my incredibly dysfunctional family. My last hope is that Brock doesn't post the pictures he took of my hand on Facebook.

Nutrition and Prostitution: A Lesson.

Pretty much everybody knows that the Bowyer women are winos. One of Dad's nicknames for my Mom is Rhine-have-a-glass-full. I don't know what the significance of "Rhine" is. Jesse calls me the winocerous. And Sara doesn't have a cute wino nickname because she never buys communal wine and always pinches the wine my Mom and I buy.

<Sara: False. I do not have a wino name because I am NOT a wino. Wine sucks. I only drink it because it's a more paleo alternative to beer and I'm too much of a lazy bastard to go buy more alcohol when it's already available. Once again, we have to wonder whether or not I was switched at the hospital. However, I do have a drinking nickname. It's Jack Daniels...which brings a lot of questions to mind that we don't have the time nor patience to answer here.>

Anyways, Mom and I were discussing how unfulfilling just one glass of wine is.We were talking about her being the designated driver at an upcoming wedding and I told her to come to the reception and have a glass of wine.

Mom: That's not fulfilling. One glass of wine is so disappointing. It's just empty calories. 

Lindsay: And drinking a bottle of wine isn't empty calories?

Mom: No! Because you at least get a buzz out of it, so it's not useless! The calories are worth it!

Lindsay: Oh, that makes sense.

Apparently, our mother also thinks that you will only get a "buzz" from drinking an entire bottle of wine. this is why we buy the double bottles from the bottom shelf. You know what we're talking about.

 Later, some stupid HGTV show was on about realtors in Beverly Hills or somewhere similar with ridiculously rich clientele/homes. Predictably, most of the "realtors" are blonde, barbie-doll, Beverly Hills-type women who may be good businesswomen (doubtful), but are probably better at just being on a reality TV show. . 

Dad: I wonder if any of these girls [realtors] get their legs up in the air for these potential buyers...

Sara: Wow, Dad. Gross.

Dad: What's gross about that?

Sara: Everything!

Dad: So, you wouldn't, if you had the chance to make $250,000 in commission? They're selling multi-million dollar homes!

Lindsay: Dad, that's basically prostitution.

Dad: Dude, $250,000 in one lump sum. You wouldn't?

Sara: It's not "basically" prostitution. It's just prostitution. You throwing in sex for a male buyer to make a sale so you can get the commission cash. It's not suddenly a respectable transaction when it's in the thousands of dollars. 

Dad: Well I learned something, then.

There you go, kids. A lesson in nutrition and how to be a realtor/prostitute tycoon. 

The Bowyers Learn How To Use Caps Lock

Last week, Mom went back to work for the first time since her hand surgery. We know this because once again we’ve been getting random E-mails with links to news articles and one television is constantly reserved for Fox News turned all the way up to 11 each night.

I (Sara) would just like to point out that even though I’m the one who apparently bothers everyone else with E-mails all day, I receive a rather high number of fairly pointless E-mails myself. What’s that joke about the kettle and the pot again?

Anyways, here’s a meditation from our Mother about the usage of caps lock:

Mom: http://thehill.com/blogs/twitter-room/other-news/244765-romney-campaign-calls-out-obama-for-spelling-ohio-wrong

Sara: The world is really unfair, isn’t it?

Mom: No, the media are biased

Sara: Ooooh, and I’m sure it’s just an overwhelming liberal bias, keeping those poor unappreciated and disadvantaged conservatives down!

Mom:

Sara: Very mature.

I DON’T WANT TO BE AT WORK I JUST WANT TO GO TO PULLMAN AND BE DRINKING.

Mom:

Sara: I wrote a poem about going to Pullman. That's how checked out I am.

Mom: ARE YOU GOING THIS WEEKEND?

Sara: Are you trying to be funny?

Mom: NO, DID I MISS SOMETHING?

Sara: …yes. Yes you did. Dad and Lindsay know. How did you not?

Mom: SAME WAY YOU MISS THINGS ALL THE TIME, SO TELL ME

Sara: I’m leaving tomorrow night to go to Pullman for Margo’s 21^st birthday. Natty’s going with me. We were talking about it last night!

Mom: NOT IN FRONT OF ME. HOW LONG WILL YOU BE GONE?

Sara: Okay you can chill with all the caps…til Sunday.

Mom: CAPS ON BECAUSE ENTERING IN CAPS ON SPREADSHEET. TOO LAZY TO TAKE CAP LOCK OFF

Sara: Good god mother. It’s like you WANT us to post all of your ridiculous shenanigans on the blog.

Mom: How is typing in caps fodder for blog? You are pretty desperate for material. Maybe your family is more normal than you think.

Sara:

Because this is what everyone sees in their head when you do it.

Mom: What a whiner

Sara: OH MY GOD MOM YOU CAN’T JUST GO AROUND CALLING PEOPLE WHINERS IT’S NOT POLITE AND IT MAKES PEOPLE FEEL LIKE POOP.

See what I mean?

Mom: You are poop.

Later, Mom continued to harass Dad with her capital letters.

Dad: I did not sleep well, my neck is killing me..

Mom: GO TO THE DOCTOR, BUT STOP WHINING TO ME. I HAVE MY OWN PAIN ISSUES, THANK YOU*

Dad: This is the level of care and concern I get from my wife...

By the time Lindsay started E-mailing Sara demanding entertainment, Sara had decided to take Mom’s affinity for caps lock and put it to use.

Lindsay: I saw this on a pink sticky note in the kitchen at work the other day.
"Eat as many cherry's as you like! They're delicious!" (there was a bag of communal cherries)

- and then below that someone added on:

"You mean cherries?"
LOLZ

Sara: Grammar Nazis everywhere!

Lindsay: The chicken breasts you cook make me sad and so I'm going to start giving you recipes for them so you can stop eating boring, gray chicken.

Sara: Dude…the fuck…my chicken breasts aren’t that bad…

Lindsay: They're not bad. But they're sad.

Sara: YOU’RE SAD. WHAT THE FUCK DUDE, ALL I DO IS LIVE MY LIFE AND MAKE SOME GODDAMN CHICKEN. WHAT IF I LIKE IT GREY? WHAT IF I JUST DON’T HAVE THE ENERGY OR TIME TO PUT INTO A BIG FANCY RECIPE?? I’M TIRED AS ALL FUCK WHEN I GET HOME. JESUS JUMPED UP FUCKING CHRIST, DID I ASK YOU TO JUDGE MY CHICKEN?? DID I ASK YOU FOR A MORE EXCITING ALTERNATIVE? NO. FUCK NO. YOU KNOW WHAT, YOU CAN TAKE YOUR “FUN” CHICKEN AND SHOVE IT RIGHT UP YOUR FUCKING ASSHOLE, WHILE I KEEP EATING MY POOR NEGLECTED GREY CHICKEN. FUCK OFF.

Lindsay: Angry Sara is angry.

Sara: I get very maternal about my chicken.

Lindsay: I was just trying to improve the quality of your life by being a caring sister.

Sara: GODDAMNIT I WANT TO BE DRUNK NOW.

*These issues will be addressed further in the next guest post, courtesy of The House Dragon.

"No Stabbing Anyone Until After I Have My Guests Over"

Lindsay and Sara can sometimes get a little…violent. We are sisters, after all. And as such, we couldn't have gotten through childhood without a few attempts at sibling homicide. Like the time Lindsay rolled the car window up on Sara’s neck.* Or when she chased Sara into oncoming traffic.** Or when she choked a 3-year-old Sara.***

…The murder attempts appear to be pretty one-sided, don’t they?

Well I (Sara) subconsciously decided it was time for some good old fashioned revenge last night. I was chopping cucumbers for a salad while Lindsay was sautéing, when Lindsay attempted to poke me in the side, as she is wont to do. I swung out to block her, completely forgetting that I had a six inch knife in my fist.

It’s worth noting that had this gone differently, we probably wouldn’t be laughing about it or posting it in the blog.  Well…we might wait a bit longer to post it at least. You know, after we confirmed Lindsay was going to live and her stab wound healed.

<Edit by Lindsay> Thank god for Sara's lack of motor coordination, otherwise you would be stuck with her memories of our childhood. 
<Edit by Sara> For the last time, I wasn't ACTUALLY trying to stab you. In this case, my awesome motor skills saved your life, you paranoid, nitpicky old bat! Maybe you shouldn't harass me while I'm wielding cutlery?>

Lindsay: You almost just stabbed me! Like, legitimately!

Sara: Fuck! That was close!

Lindsay: Mom, did you see Sara almost FUCKING stab me?

Mom: What?

Jesse: Dude, that was actually kind of scary.

Mom: You can’t stab her today. Wait until tomorrow.

Sara: Why?

Mom: I’m having work friends over tomorrow afternoon. No stabbing anyone until after I have my guests over.

Lindsay: MOM!

Mom: What?

Lindsay: You care more about your work party than whether or not I get stabbed?!

*silence*

Lindsay: MOM!

Mom: What? I’m doing my puzzle, leave me alone.

<Edits by Lindsay>
* The car window had already been rolled up. The car was turned off so Sara couldn't roll the window down to yell at us some asinine piece of trivia that popped into her head (She was like a cross between a 6 year old Hermione Granger and Sheldon Cooper). So she squeezed her head out the small crack in the window and got stuck. I just happened to be standing there.
 ** Sara was, like, 3 years old and ran into the street in our neighborhood in front of a car. Luckily I was there to yell for Mom (which would have been totally useless if the driver hadn't seen Sara anyways).
*** Do not remember this. Although one time I pushed Sara because she was annoying me like all little sisters do, and she fell and bit through her tongue. I was in big trouble for that one.

I'm a Force of Nature!

One day, Sara was wearing a (adorable - addition by Sara) George Takei t-shirt and Dad asked about it and then they got into a discussion about his sexuality (George Takei's, not Dad's).

Dad: He's gay?! He was on the USS Enterprise on Star Trek!
Sara: Yeah.
Dad: Well I would have looked at Star Trek differently if I had known there were a bunch of homosexuals flying around in space. I mean, our tax dollars pay for that.
Sara: What?
Dad: Being on the Enterprise must have been so much more fun than I thought. Some of the best bars I've been to are gay bars.
Lindsay: What are you talking about?
Sara: You're an idiot.
Dad: I'm a force of nature!
Sara:...so is a fart.
(Do not try to make sense of this conversation. Unfortunately, quite a few of our daily conversations resemble word salads conversations you would expect between a disorganized schizophrenic and someone with dementia.)

Later, Sara was telling Dad about her friend's boyfriend who is of multiple ethnicities and speaks more than one language. Here is Dad's incredibly articulate response.
Dad: Wow! So he's, like, multicultural and shit.

At another point in the night, Dad was trying to describe the width of his shoulders.
Dad: I've got like 54 inch shoulders.
Lindsay: Dad, I think our TV is 54 inches.
Mom: There is no way you have 54 inch shoulders. They would go out to here <gestures how big they would be>
Dad: Yeah! they go all the way out to there!
Mom: Your bullshit meter goes all the way out to there.

On Sunday, Lindsay and Mom made bloody mary mix from scratch (no, you cannot have the recipe, fuck off). Two of Lindsay's friends came over that afternoon to lay in the sun and they all tried the bloody marys, which were out-of-this-fucking-world-delicious. Jesse had been in Portland that day. Even if Jesse had been in town on Sunday, he still wouldn't have been invited, because Lanae, Suzanne, and I were busy pretending we were Real Housewives or on Sex and the City (or whoever else just sits around and drinks all day). This is what he had to say when he asked me about how the bloody marys turned out.

Jesse: Well thanks for inviting me!
Lindsay: Do you have a vagina?
Jesse: Obviously not!
Sara (half paying attention, being a troll): Lenslay, you're a rapist.
Lindsay:...a what?
Sara: Oh, rapist? I meant to say racist.
Lindsay: That still doesn't work.
Jesse: I like bloody marys too, you know.