the stewart progeny�s excellent misadventure
My trip to New Jersey was an adventure. My drive down was pretty uneventful. This should have been my first clue. Normally, in my trips down to the Garden State I encounter trouble. In New Jersey only the strong survive and I was having it easy. That�s just not right.
When I got to my cousin�s house my Aunt needed someone to take the girl cousin somewhere. I offered to do it because Dan (the boy cousin) didn�t want to. My aunt pointed out that I get lost in my own town and I�m hopeless once I leave it.
Dan finally agreed to take his sister where she needed to go. Our mothers have three volumes they use to communicate: passive aggressive, nag and hysterical. I went with them because Dan was taking his car and I had nothing better to do.
My car was made in a third world country called �Tennessee.� It�s not quite as exciting to drive or ride in as my cousin Dan�s Volkswagen Golf. If you have the choice between buying a Saturn and a Volkswagen and you get a Saturn you�re a fool. I�ve had and driven many cars and there is a difference between a Volkswagen and just about anything else.
Many people have friends or relatives that they do stupid things to impress or would do something stupid because that person told them to. There aren�t that many people like that in my life. Unfortunately, Dan is one of those people for me. This is the reason I ended up in the trunk of his Volkswagen Golf and being Dan�s little cousin is why I was eventually let out of it. Either that or the fear of the goose he put in there with me or I might do to his car.
After dropping Alison off where she needed to be Dan somehow got me into his trunk of his car after stuffing a goose in my pants telling me, �this will keep you warm.� Part of me wishes I were making this up. That part of me is the part that will never have children after this weekend, is bruised, sore and feeling undignified. Canadian Geese are angry little animals that are hard to fight and impossible to kill in a confined space like the trunk of a Volkswagen.
When he let me out we drove around his town taking camera phone pictures of odd things we ran into, directing lost Canadians tourists, and confusing unattractive Blockbuster cashiers. As an ugly, fat person I am here to tell you this: ugly and fat people have no business being stupid. You have to work harder than pretty people. They can skate by on their looks we cannot. We must have non-aesthetic qualities that redeem us to humanity.
The girl at blockbuster had a hard time understanding when my cousin told her, �He�s visiting me from Connecticut, he just moved from Kentucky, we�re using his card.� She asked why I moved (because that was apparently an important part of renting me the movie). Dan informed her that I had moved to Connecticut because I had divorced my sister and needed to get away from her and our inbred children. She said, �Huh?� I piped in that the reason we divorced because my sister had cheated on me with my cousin, Dan. Why would I remain friends with him and divorce her? Bro�s before ho�s, yo. We were going to ask that she be taken out of the gene pool but we were getting telephonic nagging so we went back to his house.
We watched the movie Dan picked out, Super Troopers, cinematic genius. I had not seen it but Dan had. The advantage of watching a DVD with Dan over other people is that everyone I know (including myself) gives you the five-minute spoiler. You know, where they tell you what is going to happen so you can�t enjoy the movie? At about ten we went to bed and I got up at seven. This shows that I am getting old. Someone should shoot me now.
The next day I went to Philadelphia with my Aunt and my cousin, Alison. For purposes of discussion we�ll call my Aunt, �Nessy,� her name is really Stella but the children in my family are cruel and we feed off each other and build on the other�s successes. Nessy has a green turtleneck that she was wearing one night and Dan started calling her Nessy after the Loch Ness Monster.
I had misappropriated a book from the school�s library about the Loch Ness monster and brought it to Dan. It�s at his reading and interest level so I�m sure he�ll enjoy it (I say things like that and then wonder why he locks me in the trunk of his car). In Philadelphia we gave my poor Aunt a lot of grief.
The first thing I did was take pictures of her with my camera phone and e-mail it to people whenever she gave me the evil eye for the other horrible things I was up to.
The next thing I did was an annoyance to both her and my mother. My family all uses the same cell phone-company and can call each other for free. We do this all the time and every time Nessy cursed or said something that could be construed as inappropriate I�d call my mother and tell on her. �Stella said, �shit.�� Whatever she did went into my mother�s voicemail.
The other cruelty was getting pictures of her behind things for a photo-essay we�re now working on called, �Where�s Nessy?� I was also messing with the video feature on my camera to work on a documentary called, �Nessy in Sepia� which will be snippets of us catching poor Stella at her worst for later viewing by those who don�t attending family activities.
After the museum Nessy informed us that she was conceived in Philadelphia. I like to pretend that sex doesn�t really exist and it�s something we talk about merely to annoy Lynne Cheney. I don�t ever want to know that it even happened at all.
In the museum I was allowed to take pictures because my camera has a, �museum setting� which allows me to take indoor pictures without flash. Well, I didn�t know that when you set it to video mode and then back to camera you had to reset the museum mode.
So, after filming a seen for my documentary I took a picture of Van Gogh�s �Sunflowers� and my flash went off. Imagine my embarrassment but as I�ve mentioned before our mothers come with three volumes and I got an ear full of hysterical. I still contend that while what I did was wrong it was also an accident that no one would have noticed had I not been pushed in a nearby fountain for it.
Other museum highlights include: watching someone vomit, five times, all over the section of paintings depicting American Naval battles, taking pictures of a museum security guard asleep and a man in drag and the debate that surrounds that.
The woman asleep was great because we were followed through the museum by a bunch of old women from New York who were at full New York volume woke her up, made her mad and then she followed them around the museum and harassed them for it. I think they got kicked out for touching a painting. I was annoyed by the women and amused by the sleeping guard.
The vomiting guy was special. I have pictures of that. He was throwing up and it sounded like someone dumping a bucket of water. It was loud and there was a lot splash. He threw up five times but I got to hear my favorite sound, �Are you okay?� Is he okay? He just threw up FIVE TIMES. Do you think he�s okay? I can�t believe my aunt let us take pictures of it and I�m disappointed that I didn�t have the chance to video the event. It was great.
Finally, there was a man in drag at the �Manet by the Sea� (Manet, not Monet) exhibit. He was obviously not a woman. First, women know how to walk in heels and second women don�t scratch their privates the way that men might and if they do they don�t do it as intently as a man might.
The one even I forgot to include was the cell phone incident. We all hate it when cell phones go off at inappropriate times. I thought my phone was turned off but it wasn�t. Someone called me during Manet by the Sea and this woman totally busted my chops for it. Did I have it on to piss her off? Did I tell someone to call me so I could ruin this woman�s time? No to both but I sure wish I had. When it rang I hit the �drop call,� it wasn�t like I talked to them. I should have, loudly. Cell phones are obnoxious but people who jump other people about it are more obnoxious. I like that old white women think they have obligation to scold other people in public. I said, I forgot to shut it off, it�s off now. Mind your own business. She said, young people are so rude I replied, Are you kidding me? You�re the most entitled ridiculous person I�ve met in a long time. No one is hurting you, be quiet before someone else does. She started to speak and this guard came over and I told him what happened and said, �this woman is harassing me.� I filled him in on the story and he said, �White women.� My aunt then came up and concurred that the other person was indeed a man in a dress.
On the way home from New Jersey I had an experience where I actually almost peed myself while driving. On I-95 near Greenwich this person was driving the wrong way on the interstate, right at my car. It was crazy. I was sure it was the end. This is the end. It�s so long no one will read the whole thing. Yikes.
