Embrace Your Inner Freakshow

This is what happens at a family reunion. You get together with a group of people you've known your entire life (or their entire lives) and, after being away from them for an extended period of time, notice that all of you are freakshows.

It started right away with our current reunion when I heard Mom murmuring about "these bugs" as she rummaged through her suitcase. I took a peak and, yes, Dad had packed (on purpose!) dead cicadas and hauled them 2,000 miles across the country for the grandchildren's viewing pleasure. The Tupperware container he put them in had somehow come open and cicada shells were in among the socks and pants and coloring books in the suitcase. Mom didn't seem to notice that this was freaky behavior and put all the bugs back in her Tupperware and set them on the dresser, where my sister found them (thinking the container held some sort of special snack) later that evening.

Dad's not the only one, though. It's all of us. My weird food views came out at dinner when I had to explain to my siblings (because somehow they missed it growing up) that I don't believe in bananas as a mixed food. They aren't allowed to be inside other foods. No bananas in jello, pudding, smoothies, or even banana splits. I do not allow it. It's wrong. And don't even get me started about banana flavoring.

My sister's kids are the most amusing freakshows. They have very vivid imaginations and are usually pretending to be other people. The 3-year-old spent a good part of last summer refusing to respond unless we called her Dr. DeSoto. When she was only 2-years-old, she watched the Charlie Brown Thanksgiving special on DVD and was mesmerized by the chair that Snoopy fights. She made us call her Teeny Fighting Chair. When I called her by name, she very firmly told me, "No! Teeny Fighting Chair."

So we're all hanging out together this week, looking at dead cicadas and teaching each other how to hypnotize chickens (my brother's specialty). Ahhh, family time.