In the Church of My Captain

One hardly knows where to begin. However, due to my excessive absences of late, it is probably necessary to back up a bit.

Captain Nutty, my mother, has been spending a lot of time down here lately. As the Princess of Darkness (the POD, my sister) has been rapidly approaching her high school graduation day, the plan for "reintegration" has focussed on the Captain spending more time down here to assist me and to "bond" with her precious youngest child.

And, yes, it HAS been as much fun as it sounds! I'm making nightly checks of the POD's room to remove any weapons with which she may extract her revenge upon our beloved matriarch. So far, only the parakeets have been harmed.

When the POD graduates, she will be moving back to the Great White North of Chicago to resume her previously interrupted life. She, of course, has mixed feelings about this. The Captain has only one feeling about this - pure unadulterated terror. But them's the breaks. She's going. I'm done. Job over. Time for me to remember what it's like to pee with the door open again. Time to walk around my house in the nude without hearing "EEEEWWWW! GROSS!" .

After the POD moves on to the next stage of her life, I will be moving as well. I will be moving back down to the area in Atlanta where I used to live as opposed to the suburb where I moved for the POD to attend a school to address her "special needs" (and by "special needs", I mean her general insanity). Since I'm moving, I'm downsizing as well.

My point? Why waste your time with all this back story?

I've two words for you. The most feared words in all of Floydom.

Garage Sale.

For the unenlightened, the Captain fancies herself an "antiques dealer" (and by "antiques dealer", I mean someone who buys crap from garage sales and then resells it in her own garage sale for triple the price).

Now, gentle reader, I know better. I KNOW BETTER. I have had garage sales with the Captain before and it always ends up with my blood pressure doing it's Mount Vesuvius impression. But the Captain begged. She pleaded. She annoyed the ever-living crap out of me. I caved. I caved with the caveat that I could not help her get ready for it and that the goal was simply to get rid of crap - the goal was NOT to make money. You have to make these things very clear to the Captain.

Did the Captain listen? Did the Captain grasp the need to have a laid-back garage sale? Does bear crap stick to their fur?

We made it through Friday as the Captain convinced various unsuspecting neighbors that the cut glass paperweight my Dead Aunt Charlotte picked up at T.J. Maxx was really an expensive piece of pre-industrial crystal preciously chiseled out of a Mayan mine and lovingly carried across the Alps in the Von Trapp family's knapsack to eventually find its way to my lowly garage. Thankfully, no one spotted the Made in Korea sticker on the bottom.

However, on Saturday (cause did you know that garage sales now have to go on for TWO fucking days????), we were not so fortunate. I suppose the pressure of convincing that unsuspecting old woman that she NEEDED a used George Foreman grill became to much for her. But I guess to be honest, the final straw was me calling her out in front of her customer for trying to sell an old blue water bottle for 5 bucks and waxing poetically about its ancient use as a geisha girl bidet instrument.

I pulled the Captain aside and had a few words with her about settling the fuck down. I also expressed my growing frustration with her inability to hear anything. The woman's consistent use of painkillers over the past few years has destroyed her hearing. And she of course refuses to acknowledge such hearing loss....or maybe she just didn't hear me...who the fuck knows.

Well, the Captain lost it. And frankly, after enough pain killers to put down a yak, who came blame her.

She storms back to the house all the while yelling, "Fuck you, Floyd! Just fuck you!" (and no, she doesn't call me Floyd).

I told her to get in the house.

She then turned around and said "Damn you for this, Floyd! Damn you!" (and no, she still doesn't call me Floyd).

Well, and here is where I might have gone a bit too far.

I look at her and go "What? Can you speak up? I can't hear you!".

Hehehehehe..... a bit too far but extremely satisfying.

She disappears into the house and fifteen minutes later, I see perhaps the most beautiful and hilarious sight ever to meet my garage sale weary eyes.

The Captain comes storming out of the house with her little dog on his leash and her overnight case. And in her most Scarlet O'Hara fashion, she announces she's leaving and "not to try and stop her".

I reply, "Have a great trip! See ya!".

She disappears for two days. (and by disappear, I mean went to my Aunt's house to cry and bitch and paint me as the evil, ungrateful spawn of Satan that left her to do a garage sale all by herself with no help from me whatsoever).

My point?

I did a lot of damn work for a little bit of a break. And therefore, this time for henceforth shall be known as the Blessed Pilgrimage of the Captain and the Holy Communion of the Garage Sale from whence we have all been saved and reborn without evil parentage. Praise be to the garage.