The Peanut Chronicles

Thursday, August 10, 2006

She smiles politely back at you. you stare politely right on through

It’s been a looooong day with many a conversation with the Moe, who offers good advice for people in need (thank you) so my summery of Chicago is more then likely going to be sporadic. Maybe I should tell you the story of how we went and viewed the body.

Yes, the body. This is my evil MIL’s father we are talking about. I have met him all of once. Yuppers, one time only, at my wedding, when I was truly and madly drunk as a skunk he was nice, I guess. But due to my MIL talking shit about me, I had no idea what to expect when I was going. After all, this was HER family.

We walk in to the funeral home and both realize that we are waaaay under dressed. Bear was in jeans and a t-shirt. I was in loafer pants and a bunny shirt that said, “I know just how you feel, I just don’t care.”

(Way to go, Jo!! Great way to be sensitive.)

Alas, the only thing that saves me is that I have the preverbal “golden Ticket.” I have the Nut in my arms, or as the EFIL says, “his favorite grandson.”

EMIL hugs me and says I look good. Trying to make amends are we? Somehow that crack about needing a paternity test for the baby comes screaming into my ears. She smiles politely at me. I stare right through it. I make nice, biting my tongue and saying nothing.

The body. All right, Hank looked NOTHING like I remember him. He had lost A LOT of weight. He had on A LOT of make up. He looked like a wax statue. Really, he did. Half of me expected him top open his eyes quickly and pop up saying to everyone “Psych!! Fooled ya!” or “heh, just kidding!” No such luck on that front though.

Bear and his dad kneeled together at the coffin and prayed as I stood back with the Nut and watched. I didn’t want to play nice with EMIL or her sister, who came up and kissed me and said, “I suppose you don’t remember me from the wedding.” (Yes, I do, you idiot.) What’s worse is that figging EFIL kept saying to people, "and this is my daughter in law, Rachel.”

Dude, its Joanna. No one but my grandfather calls me Rachel and sorry, you don’t get to be as cool as he was. I have to tell people, as I shake their hands, "uhh... it's Joanna." They, of course, can't seem to remember this fact five seconds after I say it.

I was worried that the impact of Nut seeing a dead body at his age might have some irreversible consequences on his psyche but in reality, will he remember this when he is grown? Will he even understand that he was looking at his great grandfather’s body? What will he think of this memory years and years from now? And the most important of all the questions, what do I do if he throws up on the body while we are here?

Lucky for me the latter part didn’t happen. I still kept him at least two feet away.