Drowning in the Gene Pool

My family is an odd one...I am sure many families have their weird Uncle Joe or thier crazy Aunt Sue...I just feel like sometimes my family has an overabundance of weirdos.

It may not be that the people themselves are weird...but they just do weird things.

Ok my great uncle who spent the 80's as a Boy George impersonator is weird...

This past Thanksgiving I spent time at my parents house with my sister and my Aunt and Uncle (mothers brother)...while there I learned my mother who can barely figure out how to work a cordless phone is appearently a TIVO savant - man those fingers were flying over that remote...because gosh forbid she doesn't TIVO all the Walker, Texas Ranger episodes in any given day the world might just implode.

Now my mom is holding her own...but looking down the line to where she is headed, i.e. my grandmother, the outlook isn't good...

While sitting around Thanksgiving night my aunt asked if I had seen my mothers birthday card from my grandmother...nope I hadn't...so she sent my uncle into the guestroom to get it...

Now my mother turned 60 this year - a big birthday...every year my grandmother gives all her kids the same thing for thier birthdays - a check for $100 - but not for my mothers 60th...oh no

My mother got a check for $11 - now you may ask "what happened to the other $89" of her $100 Birthday Check

My uncle appeared in the doorway with a piece of foam board about 3ft high by about 1.5 ft wide....in the middle was a picture of my mother with the wording Happy Birthday...the 60 was done up very nicely in the form of gold Sacagawea $1 coins...but oh no that wasn't all - the whole thing was framed in the gold coins...a total of 89 in all...SUPERGLUED to the foam board...

As soon as I can get the picture off my camera I promise I will post it - because a card such as this is just to yummy to keep all to myself...

I told my mother we should bring it with us when we went shopping on Black Friday...surely Target would be happy to accept a 4.5 square foot foam board worth $89 as payment?