You don't deserve nothin'

Well Well Well. Hello there.
Here I am, blogging from the outer banks of North Carolina, where I am currently plopped down in a beach house with my whole entire extended family. And lots and lots of liquor.

Tonight we managed to pull off a huge family photo on the beach, and logistics be damned, each of us actually got a white tee-shirt on, combed our hair, wrangled our children, and showed up to pose in the tall grasses of the eroding sand dunes before a wild pink sunset over the ocean. It was pretty damned impressive.

I do have a pretty awesome family. We all have different lifestyles and interests but I look forward to meeting up every year with my cousins and their spouses and spending a week cooking, chilling out on the deck in front of the ocean, and laughing hysterically at the things we used to all do to each other when we were kids.

I was reminded of how much I lucked out in the family department yesterday, when camped out next to us was the most freakishly backwoods family I have ever encountered. Did you ever see "The Hills Have Eyes"?

There were what appeared to be three grown sisters, with their assorted booger-smeared children in tow, and an immensely obese grandmaw in a very teeny strapless bikini, who sported several giant tattoos and sucked nonstop on Marlboro Reds.

Our favorite of the three sisters, who we decided was named Cheyenne, was quite pregnant (I'd guess six months, given the way her belly jutted out of her Casper-white, malnourished frame) and chainsmoked like she was going to the chair. She had something tattooed in Arabic on her back, and we, bitchy Northeast elitist snots, were all taking turns guessing what the tattoo might mean. My cousin Brenna thought it probably meant, "Die Towelheads, Die...USA Rules!"
My guess was, "Army MILF". Or maybe something simpler, like, "Hottie". Why go to the trouble of putting it in Arabic though?

In any event, they were really interesting to watch. And to make us feel superior.
The mothers barked incessantly at the kids to "Get off the gahddamned blanket!" and "get out of my face!", in between feeding them Mr. Pibb and bags of microwave popcorn. One of the mom's, after being asked for something probably totally ridiculous by one of the kids, like, say, a shovel to dig in the sand, took her Virginia Slim out of her mouth to yell in his face, "You don't deserve nothin'!"

It was awesome.

Especially when the worst thing we've had to contend with is Lily and my nephew splashing each other too hard in the pool or fighting over who can use the blue crayon first. Big fucking whoop.

Yeah, I'm pretty gahdamned lucky.