What a long strange trip it's been...

One of my brothers is a Certified Public Accountant (CPA) and one of my brothers spent part of his college career following the Grateful Dead. In some ways, you immediately know they're brothers. In other ways, it's simply impossible to believe they share the same DNA. In fact, I’d argue that the only the reason you know they're related is because they're both shits. Don't get me wrong. They're good brothers and I love them, but they're complete and total assholes sometimes... especially when they decide that the sole purpose of their existence is to mess with mine.

Allow me to elucidate.

Ten years ago, when my mother had open-heart surgery, my three siblings, my dad, my cousins, my Aunt and Uncle, and I were in the waiting room, when my oldest brother, the CPA, said, "Does anyone want to get a cup of coffee?" Against my better judgment, I said yes. Later, when we were alone in the elevator, he casually stated, "Can you believe they're replacing mom's mitral valve with one from a chimpanzee?" At said moment, I flipped shit (no pun intended… as chimps actually DO throw poop). I seriously freaked out so hard that to this day I wonder if Hospital Security still watches the footage from that security camera during their Christmas parties. I know I would.

Anyway, I don't know why I was so upset. I honestly don't. It could be because I've always supported People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA). It could be because I felt out of the loop for not knowing. It could be because I was simply emotionally and physically exhausted. Whatever the reason, I truly went totally ape shit (pun intended that time). There were tears... there was snot… and my voice shot to a decibel that only dogs could hear. Later, when we got back to the waiting room, my sister could see that I was completely distraught and asked what happened. At the top of my lungs, through muffled sobs, I said, "I CANNOT BELIEVE THAT NOT ONE OF YOU WAS HUMAN ENOUGH TO TELL ME THAT OUR MOTHER WAS GETTING A MONKEY VALVE!"

As the ENTIRE waiting room stared on in horror, my oldest brother grunted, "They ruined it! RUINED IT… Damn them. DAMN THEM ALL TO HELL…" and shook his fist at us... exactly like Charlton Heston in Planet of the Apes. As my sister hugged me and started laughing, my other brother softly added:

    Cost of open-heart surgery... $25,000

    Cost of a monkey valve... $10,000

    Fucking with your sister while your mother is in surgery... priceless

It's funny, unless your siblings give you a shirt which says that for your birthday (instead of giving you real gifts)... but I digress. The point is that our poor mother left the hospital last Wednesday, fell on Monday, had hip surgery on Tuesday, and has been on morphine ever since to help with the pain. And, because opiates cause you to hallucinate while you dream, she’s been tripping harder than Jerry Garcia in the 1980s, which is ONLY funny because my brother, the ex-Dead Head, is the one spending the most time with her at the hospital this week. As they say, karma’s a bitch. 

In fact, it’s such a bitch that the other day she was hallucinating hard enough to think his hand was food and asked if she could have a bite. When he told the nurses, they said, "That's nothing... she sings in her sleep, too." To which my brother replied, "In other words, when the moon hits your eye like a big pizza-pie, that's an opiate." It's all fun and games until someone gets that on a birthday shirt next year. 

Talk to you later.