Res Ipsa Loquitur

But today's news was the straw that broke the camel's back. There is no way I can keep this to myself and remain even borderline sane. My sister the 45-year-old Percocet addict says she's going to have a baby. Strap yourselves in, children, we are about to rush in where not only angels, but even Michael Jackson fears to tread.

Yes, if we were the Jacksons, my sister would definitely be Michael. I guess that makes me La Toya.

Last week, my grandmother died, and both of us inherited a little money. I'm doing the sane thing with mine. I'm buying a big red electric guitar I can't play, plus a .50-caliber Desert Eagle. Okay, I'm only diverting a portion of it to that, but it sounds better if I pretend I'm blowing the whole wad. My family is vanishing like people who admit they voted for Nixon, and I'm in a business where I get paid in spurts, so I tend to receive money in big lumps from time to time, and I always like to take a little bit off the top and get myself a present or two.

My sister's present to herself will be a squalling brat fathered by a deaf boyfriend half her age, whom I refer to as "Lurch." What difference does it make what I call him? He can’t hear me anyway. When I say she’s having a brat, I’m assuming her engine catches when he turns on the ignition. If there is a God and He takes a hand in this debacle, the kid's sperm will do the wise thing and swim BACKWARD. But as we all know, sometimes God's sense of humor gets the better of Him. She'll probably have twins.

I guess she figures her financial situation has improved, and the one ovary she has left (I think the other one committed suicide as a matter of conscience) is not getting any healthier, and if her looks deteriorate any further, she'll have to BUY semen, so the iron is hot, and it's time to strike.

She came over to my father's house and made the announcement earlier today, after telling us that my manic-depressive cousin is planning to screw up the trust Granny left for him. Apparently, he's angry that he won't be able to spend the whole sum on cell phones and Victoria's Secret panties for the strippers who enjoy his company when he's in a spending mood, which he was in last year, to the tune of $36,000.

My father is an exceptionally fine lawyer, but I will be the first one to admit that not all of his dogs are barking, and he has a sick desire for grandchildren. It mystifies me, because when he had children of his own, he couldn't get away from us fast enough, but I think hormones make people crazy when they get past a certain age. In addition to wanting grandchildren, he hoards plastic forks from Wendy's and packs unused fast-food napkins in all the storage areas of his car.

Well, not even Dad was ready for this little candygram from Satan. As I noted in an email to a friend today, in the past, my sister has claimed to have "lupus, nerve damage, diabetes, kidney failure, rabies, several forms of cancer, and feline distemper." Sure, it's mosly bullshit, but her health is not good, partly because she smokes about two pounds of Winstons a day and in a typical month, she takes her own weight in Percocet.

Percocet, for all you people from non-dysfunctional families not burdened with drug addicts, is a combination of synthetic codeine (oxycodone, I think) and acetaminophen, which you know as Tylenol. Okay, opiates aren't exactly good for you. For one thing, they cause constipation. We always knew my sister was on a binge when she started to look like a pyramid and empty Fleet enemas started rolling out from under her bed. But acetaminophen is a POISON. If you take it in large amounts, especially with alcohol, it will shut down your liver for good, and then you die, unless you're very rich or Mickey Mantle.

Back in the salad days of her addiction, my sister would sometimes take about 30 Percocets or Vicodins (same thing, more or less) in a day. It's a wonder Fleet enemas worked. It's a wonder she didn't have to use a chisel.

She also used to get jaundice. Not regular jaundice, but what I would describe a “Day-Glo Jaundice.” The kind of jaundice that could be helpful when crossing the street on foot on moonless nights. I think that if you put her in a dark room, you could read a book in the yellow glow.

You can imagine what taking 30 Percocets a day will do to your liver. Hell, at that level, the CALORIES start to be a concern. Of course, she got hepatitis. Unfortunately for the people who ran her condo association, she blamed it on a toilet that overflowed (you can get viral hepatitis that way), and she took them for almost $80,000.

She has never gotten a handle on her addiction, possibly because she's a totally worthless human being who has no conscience, but that is just speculation on my part. I assume there’s a connection. Call me a cynic.

Because she can't stay clean, at 45, about half the time, she's roughly the same color as a banana. She looks like a banana with big hair and a briefcase.

So we have a 45-year-old woman with a severe drug addiction and major liver problems, not to mention feline distemper, attempting to conceive a baby with an unemployed deaf man half her age, who cannot work because he has post-traumatic distress syndrome.

Seriously, how could you expect me not to write about this? To a writer, this stuff is mother's milk. God cannot expect me to keep this to myself. Would He put a Ferrari in my driveway and expect me not to drive it? Would He put cigars in my humidor and expect me not to smoke them? Would He make me headmaster of a boarding school for Catholic girls in plaid skirts and not expect me to abuse my position and land in the penitentiary? Surely not. Thou shalt not muzzle the ox that treads out the corn. The corn has arrived, and I am treading as hard as I can.

Why does he have post-traumatic stress syndrome? The boyfriend, not God. Although given the way creation has turned out, I wouldn't blame God at all if He turned out to have a prescription for Paxil.

The boyfriend had a DUI a couple of years back. Guess who represented him. No, not Johnny Cochran. My sister. The white female Johnny Cochran. He got thrown in jail for 15 hours, and as a result, he now has a phobia of time clocks and paychecks. Or something like that. The facts are never as important as the big picture.

Okay, let's review. Middle-aged unhealthy yellow woman with drug problem and several dozen incurable diseases. Young deaf man in his twenties who is unable to work because two years ago, some slackjaw with a badge took away his belt and made him sit in a cell where he was not allowed to watch Blue's Clues.

Can this guy hold down a job? Hard to say, since the question is purely theoretical and likely to remain so. My sister says he’s Phi Beta Kappa. I don’t know if you realize how worthless “Phi Beta Kappa” is; it means almost nothing. In my email to my friend, I said, “Whoopee, that means he pulled a B+ average at the College of Sign Language and the Tonsorial Arts.” I’m Sigma Pi Sigma, which is Phi Beta Kappa for physicists, and I routinely have to ask people what day of the week it is.

Would my sister be getting married, my father wanted to know. “Maybe.” Isn’t that special? It’s not bad enough that my nephew will be raised by Helen Keller and the human butter bean. He’ll also be a bastard. And bastardy will be thrust upon him as his birthright. The rest of us in the family had to earn it.

My father was pretty upset by the news. I told him not to worry about it. I doubt my sister’s three remaining eggs have any life left in them. It would probably be easier to fertilize the ones in my refrigerator. Maybe later today, I’ll give that a shot and see how it goes. The end result could be highly beneficial: a chicken with my talent for making cornbread.

I guess I’ll refrain from putting this on my site for now. I know my relatives would never find it. Looking for my website would imply giving a crap about me and my life. But you never know; one of them might come across it by accident while looking for The Smoking Gun or midget porn. My pal Rita says she doesn’t mind helping me hide from my relations, so maybe she’ll graciously throw this little screed up on her blog for me.
If that goes well, perhaps I’ll write about Granny’s funeral. I’m already going to hell, and you know what I always say. “Go big, or go home.”