the guy in the banana suit
So. I know a lot of people are wondering where the hell the fic is, and I do apologize for the long gap. A couple of months ago my parents brought home Crazy Uncle Bob who is, well, crazy as a bag of cats on speed. Now, Bob's one of my dad's seven brothers. I happen to be one of the two people in the entire family Bob will voluntarily speak to for more than a mumbled single syllable answer. How does this relate to where the hell the fic posting has been? Well, see: Crazy Uncle Bob and his many, many issues.
So, Himself and I don't really have a lot of room in our current place. And we're moving, hopefully, in the next few months. Crazy Uncle Bob has been bouncing back and forth between our place and my parents for months. This is not conducive to my mental health or my general state of well-being, but family, being what it is, is family, so what are you going to do? Anyway, Crazy Uncle Bob finally got a clean bill of health today and I've sent him back off to my parents, who have more room and a warmer house than ours, so he's mostly out of my hair. Mostly, save the requisite family Sunday dinners and other events and medical appointments I run him to on a regular basis. So. That's just ONE of the issues that's been taking up a lot of my free time and my concentration (there's been more - so much more with various other uncles and cousins and aunts and my goddamn in-laws that I don't want to get into. It's been a hectic year.)
So how the hell does this relate to the guy in the banana suit? Why, I'm glad you asked.
So. Both sides of my family come from extremely rural areas. Like, the town my mother grew up in was considered big and it had 3000 people in it. Perhaps less, because it was at 3000 when I was a kid, so it there's a good chance it was much less when my mom was growing up. My dad's side of the family is from the EXTREMELY rural midwest, connected in a bunch of tiny towns, at least when dad and his siblings weren't growing up in the slumlands of Detroit. ANYWAY, so, pretty much all of my dad's siblings have this distinctive twang to the way they talk. It's very midwestern, very distinct and the only way I can explain it is that they take any and all excuses to cut out syllables from words. Like, say February. In my family-speak, it becomes Febry. Out goes the middle part of the word. There are literally some cities I cannot pronounce, because of this twang. When I am not with them, I sound like I grew up on the west coast, just like Himself. However, if you get me in a room with any of my relatives, or even on the PHONE with them and I will, without a doubt, slide right back into that same twang.
I spent a lot of time with my father's extended family. There were...reasons. But yeah. Lots of time in the very, very, very rural midwest shapes a person. Add to the fact that all of my family is 1) very long lived and 2) has kids very late? Yeaaaaah. I sometimes come out with turns of phrase that haven't been heard outside of the rural midwest for, oh, decades. It's hilarious. What's even funnier? Going back there with Himself after we were married and watching him FREAK the fuck out. He's from a very large Mexican family. He couldn't even understand my Aunt for a while until he got the hang of the twang. It was so awesome.
ANYWAY, getting back to the man in the banana suit. So, with the background that I come from a very rural, small town families, it was always a thing with them to wave at people as we drove past. It rarely mattered if you even knew the people, because there was a good chance that you were either a) related to them in some manner or b) you lived near them and it was just neighborly to do so. So you waved. It didn't matter. You fucking waved or you got chewed out by your relatives for NOT waving.
This is where we get to the man in the banana suit. He's out there, come rain, slush, sun and heavy wind. He holds up the gold-buyer's sign and pretty much stands on the edge of the street, dancing to keep himself warm and waving at the cars that pass.
And I wave back at him. Every. Single. Time. It's to the point where he recognizes my wreck of a car and he perks up and waves a little more excitedly and does this ridiculous point-and-grin thing. It's face-palmingly ridiculous and also kind of awesome. I bring this up, because for the first time today, I had Crazy Uncle Bob in the car with me when we passed the man in the banana suit.
And we. Both. Waved. It was automatic. And hilarious. I couldn't stop giggling.
So yeah. That's my story of me, Crazy Uncle Bob and the man in the banana suit.
So, Himself and I don't really have a lot of room in our current place. And we're moving, hopefully, in the next few months. Crazy Uncle Bob has been bouncing back and forth between our place and my parents for months. This is not conducive to my mental health or my general state of well-being, but family, being what it is, is family, so what are you going to do? Anyway, Crazy Uncle Bob finally got a clean bill of health today and I've sent him back off to my parents, who have more room and a warmer house than ours, so he's mostly out of my hair. Mostly, save the requisite family Sunday dinners and other events and medical appointments I run him to on a regular basis. So. That's just ONE of the issues that's been taking up a lot of my free time and my concentration (there's been more - so much more with various other uncles and cousins and aunts and my goddamn in-laws that I don't want to get into. It's been a hectic year.)
So how the hell does this relate to the guy in the banana suit? Why, I'm glad you asked.
So. Both sides of my family come from extremely rural areas. Like, the town my mother grew up in was considered big and it had 3000 people in it. Perhaps less, because it was at 3000 when I was a kid, so it there's a good chance it was much less when my mom was growing up. My dad's side of the family is from the EXTREMELY rural midwest, connected in a bunch of tiny towns, at least when dad and his siblings weren't growing up in the slumlands of Detroit. ANYWAY, so, pretty much all of my dad's siblings have this distinctive twang to the way they talk. It's very midwestern, very distinct and the only way I can explain it is that they take any and all excuses to cut out syllables from words. Like, say February. In my family-speak, it becomes Febry. Out goes the middle part of the word. There are literally some cities I cannot pronounce, because of this twang. When I am not with them, I sound like I grew up on the west coast, just like Himself. However, if you get me in a room with any of my relatives, or even on the PHONE with them and I will, without a doubt, slide right back into that same twang.
I spent a lot of time with my father's extended family. There were...reasons. But yeah. Lots of time in the very, very, very rural midwest shapes a person. Add to the fact that all of my family is 1) very long lived and 2) has kids very late? Yeaaaaah. I sometimes come out with turns of phrase that haven't been heard outside of the rural midwest for, oh, decades. It's hilarious. What's even funnier? Going back there with Himself after we were married and watching him FREAK the fuck out. He's from a very large Mexican family. He couldn't even understand my Aunt for a while until he got the hang of the twang. It was so awesome.
ANYWAY, getting back to the man in the banana suit. So, with the background that I come from a very rural, small town families, it was always a thing with them to wave at people as we drove past. It rarely mattered if you even knew the people, because there was a good chance that you were either a) related to them in some manner or b) you lived near them and it was just neighborly to do so. So you waved. It didn't matter. You fucking waved or you got chewed out by your relatives for NOT waving.
This is where we get to the man in the banana suit. He's out there, come rain, slush, sun and heavy wind. He holds up the gold-buyer's sign and pretty much stands on the edge of the street, dancing to keep himself warm and waving at the cars that pass.
And I wave back at him. Every. Single. Time. It's to the point where he recognizes my wreck of a car and he perks up and waves a little more excitedly and does this ridiculous point-and-grin thing. It's face-palmingly ridiculous and also kind of awesome. I bring this up, because for the first time today, I had Crazy Uncle Bob in the car with me when we passed the man in the banana suit.
And we. Both. Waved. It was automatic. And hilarious. I couldn't stop giggling.
So yeah. That's my story of me, Crazy Uncle Bob and the man in the banana suit.