Monday, May 23, 2005
White Trash Hullabaloo
Beware: The story I'm telling is not only true, but so white trash you might see Moon Pies and RC Colas before your eyes after reading it.

A couple of aunts on my dad's side of the family live in northern Ohio, near Cleveland. My Aunt Midge's daughter, a cousin I've never met and whose name escapes me, popped out a few unwanted kids from different fathers and took off, leaving Aunt Midge to raise them.

Aunt Midge is annoying like a lot of aunts and most likely votes republican, but she did the right thing and raised the dim-witted bastards as her own. A decidedly white trash tale to be sure, but that's only the beginning. When the children were twelve and ten respectively, my cousin returned to kidnap her abandoned children and force them to work in a traveling carnival. Jesus, I heard banjo music just typing that. A TRAVELING CARNIVAL!!!

If there could be a happy ending to such stupidity it occurred when the carnival came to Houston, Texas, where my Aunt Alice lived. The kids made a daring escape - I'd like to think in one of those cute little clown cars - and called Aunt Alice for help.

As my dad told this wretched tale to my brother and me we both fell to the floor in fits of convulsive laughter.
"There's nothing funny about this," dad said. "What's wrong with you two?"
"Did they guess people's weight?" I managed, gasping for breath. "Or did they take turns barkin' for the Yak woman?"
The louder we laughed the angrier my dad became. He was concerned about the kids, no doubt, but I'll bet what really pissed him off is he had to pay for their flight from Texas to Ohio.

For years I thought this was the most white trash story ever, but it was challenged when I worked at the liquor store and met a woman named Beth. Beth deserves her own post and will get one soon, but for now I'll stick to her entry in the White Trash Sweepstakes. When Beth was about nine or ten her mother traded her for a television; and given Beth's age, it was a black and white set. Yeah, her mom gave her to an uncle for a god damn appliance. I always told her we were going to trade her to Wal-Mart for a cash register, but I digress.

According to Beth, her mom was horribly unfit (duh) and her uncle, a kind and decent man, wanted to raise the child so she wouldn't have to eat Crisco on Wonder Bread for dinner every night. The mom said something like "Okey dokey but I want that there magical pi'ture box,"
and a deal was struck.

Trying to decide which story is more white trash makes my head hurt. Any opinions? Any unsavory tales of your own? Let me know.


7 Comments:

Blogger MsHellion said...

I'm not even gonna take the floor, bro.

Blogger Steve Caratzas said...

Yes.

Blogger Modigliani said...

Oh, my poor poor city of Cleveland. It's a sad sad place, but that story was HIL(billy)arious! hehehe....

Blogger Kristina said...

Oh yes, my ex boyfriend and his brother were sold by their mom, to their dad for $200. His parents divorced and mom won custody of both. When she needed some cash, dad stepped in and made a deal.

It's sad to say that both sons have grown to have zero respect for women.

Blogger Cincysundevil said...

I'm embarrassed about this one, but when my dad his place about 10 years ago, it had about 5 acres with it. My old man decided that he didn't want to spend his weekends on a riding mower or a tractor to cut down the encroaching weeds. So he fenced in the property and one of his friends brought over like 4 goats and they proceeded to nearly graze all the way down the dirt.

When they finished that, one of them could stick his head through part of the fence and ate the bark away at a huge shade tree near the house. Because of this, the tree somehow died and my old man ended up having to chop it down for firewood!! Not one of the proudest moments to visit your old man with a g/f with about 4 goats running around in a field!!

Blogger Dr. Chingasa said...

A family reunion of ours (circa 1981), came about because a great Aunt and Uncle had just got indoor plumbing and invited everyone over to celebrate. These were distant, but no too distant, relatives on my Mom's side. I was especially struck that I had a 2nd cousin that rode a Harley and was a mirror image of Willie Nelson. The highlight of the weekend is when my Great Uncle Booger-Red (yep, that was his name) pulled up in a truck with a bed full of his kids. He had spend the morning rounding them up from his various ex's. One of teens of the Booger-red clan kids got some whisky from his father, got rip-roaring drunk, and then got trapped in an abandoned well (they's had running water n-shit now) on property. That was the trip we went down to the reservoir to see if the water level was down enough to see the great-great uncles headstone. Saaaaalute.

Blogger Steve Caratzas said...

Sorry, but Dr. Chingasa's comment warrants a coveted "Sheezus Krice."

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