#CONSERVATIVE GRANDPA???????

[wernerherzogs]

i reblogged that stucky bracket and did a bit of whinging (tongue-in-cheek!) about it in the tags and then someone prev tagged me saying i sound like a conservative grandpa!!! 😔 i cannot take this...

*grandpa yells at a cloud voice* the kids these days have it too easy

[dadsinsuits]

Peter Bottomley

[quill-of-thoth]

The Saga of Great Uncle Asshole And The Priest From Hell

It's thanksgiving (in the US) so have a family gathering disaster that is old enough to be funny. Almost a decade ago, after a life of stirring up drama everywhere she went, my grandmother died. She was an unhappy woman who tried to be better to her grandkids than she was to her kids, and didn't always succeed, and she's the reason that when I smell cinnamon tic tacs they're accompanied by the reek of an illusory cigarette. This is not a sad post. This is a post about the fact that her funeral was a fucking disaster and it was ultimately about 50% her fault. See, my whole family was at one point or another catholic. Grandma really enjoyed going to church in her last years because it got her out of the nursing home, and priests have to listen when you tell them about the husband you divorced and the children who think they know better than you. Grandma did not consider the fact that the local priest she'd latched onto like a talkative moray eel in a cloud of nicotine smoke was an unmitigated bigot. She left instructions that she wanted her funeral to be at that specific catholic church and for that priest to do the sermon. It didn't occur to her that the person who would be organizing her funeral would be her gay daughter and her daughter's wife.

Shit started getting real about when the doors opened to recieve mourners. Over the course of ten minutes, my aunt summoned:

her elder sister, a paralegal

my father, who has never seen a conflict he would not cheerfully walk away from

Their younger brother, in order to swear at the priest

My mother, who hadn't had a good opportunity to fight a priest since we left our own church and was game to do it again.

This left me, the eldest grandchild, in charge of the receiving line, despite the fact that I knew approximately no one there. My brother and cousins were woodenly shaking hands and then whispering "who's that?" "I don't know." My aunt's husband was escorting the elderly and infirm up the stairs one at a time. My uncle's wife was also around but she knew even fewer people and was mostly listening at the door of the ongoing argument.

So when my brother and Boy cousin went to see if we could pry someone who knew who was related to us out of the argument and I was busy trying to convince an octegenarian that she did NOT need to figure out which of her cousins had married one of grandma's siblings before sitting down, Girl Cousin was alone at the door.

Great Uncle Asshole arrived in a storm of curses and a faux-coonskin cap. He blew past Girl Cousin, thumped his cane up the steps, and seized my hand. It was like shaking hands with an extremely strong mummy. "You look just like your mother! It's the hair, what a bird's nest. Where's your daddy? And the rest of Helen's brood."

I muttered something about them finalizing details with the priest.

"Well, they'll come see me soon enough. Bet you don't know who I am!" I didn't know who anyone was. Everyone older than me was having a verbal cage match with a member of the clergy or escorting some other old fogey to their seats, everyone younger than me had even fewer clues, and my only hope was to wrap this conversation as fast as possible. "Nope!" I said, "I haven't seen most of the people here in years." If I had ever seen them in the first place. He was going to be mad, but I figured if I had to be the bouncer I could probably take an eighty-something year old guy who breathed like the surgeon general's personal warning to smokers. I could at least shut the door on him.

"Of course you wouldn't! Your gran wouldn't have told you. I'm your great uncle Roger, and I'm here to bury the hatchet, by which I mean your grandma! She and I swore over our father's casket we'd never be under the same roof again while we both lived, and by god I kept my oath!" People were starting to stare, and it was at this moment that a thirty-something man in a suit sprinted up the stairs, and my uncle's wife, with a look of dawning horror, called her husband. "Roger's here." The middle aged folks descended immediately. Here is a snapshot of the ensuing conversation: "Roger, why don't we find you a seat?" - my mother in her best teacher voice "Glad to see you're doing well enough to make it" - My father, in his best 'good god I want to be anywhere else' voice. "Take me to the coffin! I want to see her with my own two eyes!" - Great Uncle Asshole, "And hang up my **** hat! Killed it myself!" "I'm so sorry, I didn't know he could walk that fast" - strange suit man "If you are QUITE finished, I am starting the ceremony in ten minutes" - the priest

As my father and his brother towed a grinning and cursing old man to the furthest reaches of the family section, my mother and my oldest aunt caught all the cousins up on the argument with the priest. My youngest aunt was still crying while her wife stared fixedly at the stained glass panes and periodically handed over tissues. The upshot of it all was that my aunt and her wife would be allowed to attend the funeral (on pain of the whole family literally walking out on the priest) but would not be allowed to take communion, because the priest didn't believe in their marriage. My aunt's wife had neglected to point out that, being Jewish, she wasn't going to take communion anyway. "That's fucked" said boy cousin, and the four of us immediately resolved in whispers to refuse communion as well. The priest opened his sermon with pointed remarks about the older generation's devotion and respect for the church. He continued on through psalms and all that until he got to the blessing of the eucharist and asked the family up to receive communion. My father, who hadn't taken communion since I could remember, stayed seated. My mother stayed seated. My aunts and uncles stayed seated. The cousins stayed seated. About a third of the church didn't move. "Well father, I'll have mine! These young folks think hey have all the time in the world to get right with the lord, but you and I know better!" The priest, who had been visibly hoping god would smite us, turned a wincing glare on my great uncle and the series of distant relatives and nursing home neighbors who were now shuffling up. The service dragged on. We were lined up to say goodbye to everyone, while the suit man (who would turn out to be my second cousin) bodily hauled great uncle asshole and his coonskin cap down the stairs. "I should have known my sister wouldn't manage to raise any good Catholics! Horrible woman." he said loudly as he was stuffed into a car driven by suit man's apparent twin. The priest approached as we were finally ready to leave, to ask why we were so stubborn that we deprived ourselves of communion. After all, unlike my youngest aunt, we weren't obvious sinners! "Oh, I'm Lutheran" - My eldest aunt. "I'm an atheist" - My uncle "I don't think you're qualified to bless anything." - My mother, who learned her religion primarily from a horde of socialist-leaning nuns.

With that, we left the wreck of my grandmother's funeral behind. "Helen," said my mother, very deliberately, when we were safely in the car, "would have HATED that." My dad started laughing. "Are you kidding? She would have loved that! It would have been all she complained about for years!"

[raven-at-the-writing-desk]

LILIA?????????? ????? ??? ? ???

HIS NEW LIMITED SSR ART DROPPED!!!!

HE’S SERVING UP LOOKS 😳 The pose, the weapon, the atmospheric setting, his expression, the way the mask is magically coming off his face………….. ……. …… … ………. … .. . . …… . . . . … . .. . . . man, I might have to roll for him OTL even though I wasn’t planning to…

P.S. IS THAT. SEBEK’S GRANDPA??????? HE’S EVEN IN THE SAME POSE????? 😭 IS THAT BAUL IN THE CROC MASK (<- delusional)

[daddies-i-love]

Michael Fallon

[t-errifier]

my grandma was tracing my tattoos in the car yesterday & unlike my italian immigrant family, she doesn't call them ugly or obscene. she asked me how many i was going to get and when i told her my goal was to get my whole legs covered she just told me: that's going to hurt you know, honey.

[commanderfreddy]

please clap

[shmowder]

just need to vent about the Olympics

[tankgotstuckinthecircusgate]

ok re-reading cig cards and it's so funny bc both leo & frank has so majestic, pretentious & powerful vibe in their descriptions meanwhile carlo is like the most godawful man on earth and moretti is a blank shell

[bagel-is-yum]

How is your mental health?

My anxiety disorder has been worse recently (probably because I haven’t had a therapy session in like a month and becuase I’ve been thinking about a lot of serious topics recently + having to see my grandpa)

[imabiscuitinthousandworlds]

okay but. success! all of my grandparents now know i'm trans and my preferred name!! they all took it well, if occasionally confused!! only six people left to go then i'm out to all of my family and can finally rest!!

[dadsinsuits]

Peter Bottomley

[papirouge]

I think I'll never be over this exchange

[incendiorum-arch]

extremely Idahoan-specific thing: all our license plates include the county the car was registered in and this fuels our animosity towards each other

[daddies-i-love]

Mark Harper

[lovecatsys]

my boss asked me what movies i was into at work today and I was like trying to figure out how to describe the specific genre of movie im into without saying gay/queer etc. she asked for an example of a movie she might know and i said Rocky Horror. and she said "oh ive never seen it, so horror movies?"