A Funny Story?!?

Here's a funny story for you all. Oh, but first, I would like to point out to anyone reading this that I actually am trying to finish the Blue Lake stories, and in fact, there is a new post right below this one.

Okay, I'm not quite sure if this story is purely funny, or just strange. You can be the judge.

Last year around Thanksgiving, my family was busy as usual. We were planning the usual extended family Thanksgiving dinner at my grandparents home. Okay let's stop right there. It sounds really cozy, but not so much. My family, i.e. my mom and her siblings (one older brother and two older sisters) all pretty much hate each other. To say they dislike each other would be an understatement. Well my two aunts claim to get along well, but they get into tons of fights and then when that happens that make horrible scathing remarks about each other. Not exactly sisterly love there. The one thing the two of them agree on is that they hate my mom. My uncle, is basically just a jerk, and the one thing that my aunts and my mom can agree on is that they all as a group hate him.

My aunts and uncle all are respectably alcoholics/drug addicts, even if they won't admit to it. Somehow I ended up with the most normal one out of the bunch for my parent, the one who is not an addict. (Well, I'll admit here that when I was a kid my mom was quite the pothead...However, she has since given that up. And in the end, if I had to choose between a parent that smoked pot versus a parent that was sucking back booze plus cocaine or popping random pills, yeah, let's just say, I'm going to go with the pothead.) My uncle, was the booze + cocaine sibling. My oldest aunt was pretty much the straight up boozer...And my younger aunt was a pothead/pill popper until about 10 years ago when she too thought it wise to become a boozer.

My gramma, well I still can't quite figure her out. Sometimes she acts as dense as Betty White's character on the Golden Girls. That is if Rose had a bitchy streak. My mom says that a lot of my gramma is an act. And over the years, I have to agree. My gramma likes to put on the persona of being this nice, sweet, caring person. For the most part, I think that is a very real part of her personality. But my gramma also has a darker side to her personality. I only see it every now and then, but it's there none the less. Like for instance, when she wanted my teenage cousin to come over after his shift at Burger King to take out her garbage. Well, he works 5 minutes away from her house, but lives half an hour away. After a full day of school, plus work, he was tired, and mistakenly forgot to stop by to take out her garbage. My mom and I were visiting her at the time, so we offered to do it instead. It was no big deal, right? Wrong. My gramma got so upset that she called my cousin and made him drive all the way out there just to take her garbage out, even though they were two lightweight bags that me and my mom could easily handle. Not only could we handle them, but we figured my gramma, who is only 67 and can still walk and do things easily, could have handled it. But my gramma was determined that my cousin was going do what she wanted to do. Nicely put, my gramma is a control freak.

My mom is the one in the family that got shunned for marrying someone black, even though my family denies it to this day. All except for my grandfather, who has fully admitted his errors and has repented for his ignorant ways. My grandfather is quite the hot head on occasion, but I do have respect for him more and more everyday, because he is the only one in the family that has admitted to his wrong ways. And not only has he admitted to it, but he has actually made attempts to correct his errors.

So as you can see, my family, is not exactly the picture of happiness. But they like to pretend to be. My mom, inherited my grandfather's hot head ways. Her mood can change from an instant from someone super happy to a person pissed off at the world. I honestly had moments in my teenage years where I wondered if she might be bipolar. No, now I don't suspect that anymore. I realize that a combination of being raised in the crazy environment that she grew up in, plus her genetic disposition for temper tantrums, and add in the fact that my father is the most passive person in the world, has made her this way. With my dad she is used to him doing whatever she wants, when she wants it. She's a total type A control freak. If she doesn't get her way, she will immediately turn into a 5 year old and throw a temper tantrum.

And my sister, has inherited this from my mother. In a milder form, but she's prone to temper tantrums none the less. My mom inherited this from her father, and in turn his temper tantrums are the worst of the three.

With this side to her personality, my mom, as well as my sister, both share something in common, that you probably wouldn't guess. They both can be extremely compassionate and thoughtful.

Now that you have a little background, I can get back to my story.

It was Thanksgiving 2005. My mom had called my gramma, and offered to make her pies. My gramma put on her Rose act and told my mom that it was really sweet of her, but she shouldn't be bothered with it. My mom in turn told her it was no problem, and she'd be happy to do it. My gramma, again said that she'd do it. My mom at this point told my gramma that she wasn't going to let her do it. So my gramma put on the sweet as pie act and told my mom to go ahead and make the pies.

My family is from the south. What my gramma prides herself on is being an amazing cook. One thing my gramma is known for is her famous Chocolate pie. Now technically, it is a chocolate meringue pie. But it is one of the most amazing things on earth. And everyone praises her for it. She only makes them on special holidays like Thanksgiving, Easter, and Christmas. It's gotten to the point where she makes three for the family to have after dinner, and then she makes four extras for each family to take home with them. Yup, we love them that much.

So, my mom was planning on making the chocolate pies. A note as to what my mom is known for in the family, being the best cook next to my gramma. Hmm, I smell a little bit of unhealthy rivalry, what do you think? Could it be that my gramma was slightly jealous of her daughter and thought that my mom might have the ability to show her up at something? Sounds ridiculous, right?

Well, my gramma gave my mom the recipe. My mom, on Thanksgiving morning, had already woken up with the attitude from hell. It wasn't that great of a surprise seeing as my mom was faced with an entire day with her family. But I was surprised because she usually covers it just a little better. She went through a dozen eggs trying to separate three. She cursed like a sailor over that. She realized she didn't have any vanilla, and she cursed like a sailor over that. I cursed to myself that my father had worked a half day and stuck me at home with her. The pie making looked like it might be a bust. I told my mom that she needed to get a grip, because everyone was going to be upset if there wasn't Chocolate pie. Well, my two cents bought me a trip to the only grocery store that was open for miles. Across town, in the snow (we had a bunch of snow last year at Thanksgiving, so I just remembered as typing this), in the middle of my annual parade watching. I missed most of last year's Detroit Thanksgiving parade because I was being screamed at/made to venture out in a snowy mess to get eggs and vanilla.

When I finally got back, my mom finally calmed down and started making the pies. Everything was ready to go. Except for one minor detail. The pies were like soup. Their normal, thicker then pudding, creamy fantastic-ness was absent. My mom had followed the recipe to the nine, and we had chocolate soup on our hands. My mom immediately started yelling that my gramma had given her the wrong recipe on purpose, and that she should have known she would sabotage her like this. She yelled about how she could tell my gramma didn't want her to make the pies, and she couldn't figure out why her mother was so evil. I thought my mom was being rediculous. After all, gramma knew how much everyone loved Chocolate pie. She wouldn't make everyone miss out on that because she didn't want my mom to make the pies, right?

So my mom called my gramma, and told her that the pies wouldn't set. She read the recipe back to my gramma multiple times, asking her wasn't there anything missing? My gramma said no, and she couldn't figure out what the problem was. My mom asked her if maybe she should add corn starch? My gramma said "Well, maybe... But it's the right recipe, it should set."

Fast forward to later that afternoon. Thanksgiving dinner. A cousin asked my gramma if there was Chocolate pie. My mom spoke up and explained why there was no pie. My gramma, then opened her fridge, and produced pies. Yes, not pumpkin, not apple, Chocolate. When my sister asked her why she had made them, my gramma just smiled and said "oh I thought just in case your mom didn't make enough, I should make just a few." My mother was fuming, my gramma was smiling smugly, and every time I took a bite of that pie, my mother glared at me.

Now here we are, a year later. We're not doing the big family thing this year. My grandfather wanted to do the restaurant thing. In passing I mentioned that it would be too bad to not have Chocolate pie for Thanksgiving, and my mom very clearly got miffed by the fact that I brought up Chocolate pie.

I was browsing the Food Network website for gingerbread recipes, at my mom's request. And for some reason, I thought to look up a Chocolate pie recipe. And from Emeril, I found a Chocolate Meringue Pie recipe. It was almost identical to my gramma's recipe, except that Emeril used a different baker's chocolate where my gramma uses Hershey's cocoa. Same ingredients, and it looked like in the same proportions too. Except for one minor/major difference. Emeril's recipe called for 6 heaping tablespoons of Corn Starch.

Funny story, huh? Thanksgiving sabotage. If there are ever moments when I wonder why there is so much hatred in my family, I should just remember the Chocolate Pie Fiasco.