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November 27, 2004
The Bird and the Word
Our little family spent a delightful holiday with my in-laws. We left Seattle Thursday morning to make the two hour drive south. So far this year, my holiday act has been really together. I had pre-made my sis-in-law's special sweet potato pie as well as my traditional cranberry sauce the night before and was ready to rock. Our estimated departure time was 9:30 am. For those of you with kids, you will realize that this is quite admirable.
The only problem was that I somehow threw my back? shoulder? neck? out while playing with the Bean just before we left, so my husband had to deal with me yelling and cursing and twisting my whole torso around to look at him during the car ride. It was like a knife was plunged and then forgotten into my left should blade. The one thing that kept me going was the knowledge that my mother-in-law has a massive pill collection and I knew that one of them would help me. Sure enough, a couple of hours and one light blue pill later, I was feeling pleasantly dreamy, pain-free and content. Better eating through chemistry!
My in-laws have different political and religious beliefs than we do and that right there is the understatement of the century. In spite of this, we enjoy each other's company, although there have been rough patches like the time I had to insist that ALL of the guns be locked in the gun safe when we visit, not just the hand guns. This particular discussion was prompted by a shotgun that was propped up next to the front door looking oh-so-much like a super fun toy in the eyes of our trigger-happy toddler.
To his credit, my father-in-law is open and up for debating any issue, and will frequently begin a conversation by saying, for example, "So, what do you think about gays getting married?", I think in part because he knows I will go into eye-rolling, inarticulate seizures. It makes me love my husband sooooo much to hear him defend the tree-huggin', queer-lovin', science-grubbin' liberal dance party that is our lives.
We had a delicious meal, drank an impressive amount of tequila, played some games, and overall had a nice visit. Then, as we were waving our goodbyes and driving up the gravel road to go home, my husband TOTALLY TAGGED a bird that ran out of the woods and directly into the path of our car. He slammed on the brakes and jumped out of the car to scoop the bird's still twitching carcass into the Bean's plastic spare diaper box. The dead bird was lying on some Pampers and an empty tube of ointment. Dignified it was not, but it was a practical use of Rubbermaid.
After a quick consultation, it was decided that we would return the dead bird to the in-laws because my husband wanted the feathers for fly-tying and he was convinced that his mom would cook and eat it, since it was apparently a grouse we hit and thus edible. "Your parents are gonna eat road kill?" I was skeptical, but my husband shrugged and said sure, why not?
When we pulled back into the driveway, everyone came out to the porch to see what was up. It turns out that it was not just any bird we hit, but a SPECIAL bird that his step-dad had befriended and named Marvin. We killed Marvin!
My husband felt bad, but by the time we got back on the road we were giggling like mad, thinking of sympathy cards we could send to my father-in-law. The one we decided on was a Photoshopped picture of a grouse with angel wings, and inside it would say "Quit your grousing, I'm in heaven now!"
RIP Marvin. May you and all the turkeys be enjoying whatever form of aviarian afterlife Christians believe you have.
Posted by Max at November 27, 2004 12:45 AM