Ah, family.

So, my family is nuts.

I don't mean that in a quirky, slightly dysfunctional but nice way, I mean they are friggin batshiat insane. Not in a psycho i ate your baby serial killer sort of way, more of a, I kicked your baby in the head by accident and oh ha ha ha ha, it's so funny your baby is deformed now, kind of way.

I hope that makes a lick of sense, because I was born into this madhouse and I think I'm a little crazy myself. What? Yes, just a little. Quit picking on me. Meanie.

So let's break them down as individuals, shall we?

Mom, that sweet old gal, she's getting on. She will mangle the easiest joke in the world to remember and will still find it so hilariously funny that she can't explain what she said wrong, and you are left staring at her wondering what she just said while tears stream from her eyes with her laughing.

My one sis, let's call her Muffins (not her real name), I call her that because she's a crazy cat lady, or will be eventually, and Muffins sounds like a cat's name. She's in town for the week. She's the type of relative who will come to visit with her extra-large van loaded down with stuff, walk in the front door, flop down on your couch, and tell you to unload the van. And she's dead serious. She can't, because her "feeeeeeet huuuuuuuuuuurt."

So, Mom and Muffins don't get along. And because I live with mom (No, not in her basement, I dwell in the light, despite being geek through and through), and Muffins is visiting, I get to hear all their wonderful arguments. Yes, the house isn't very big. So I listen to Mom and Muffins argue over EVERYTHING. And it's not, you know, important stuff, it's Mom said something and Muffins didn't like the way she said it, and Mom apologizes but muffins didn't like the way she apologized, and then muffins tells her to forget it and mom doesn't like the way she told her to forget it, and so on.

So here's the fun part. Not only do I get the wonderiferous pleasure of hearing the whole entire argument the first time around, but then, about 5 minutes later, Muffins will come into my room, where I am happily playing a perfectly good PC game, or watching horror movies, or whatever, and then proceed to tell me the entire argument over again. From HER point of view. Yes, surprisingly, there IS a major difference, since Muffins tends to, well, shall we say, rephrase the argument to make her seem like the injured party and she never did a thing wrong at any time. In fact, from Muffins' point of view, she is a goddamn angel from heaven sent down to assist both me and mom with her infinite wisdom by becoming our boss, and if only we'd just do whatever she says, our lives would be absolutely perfect in every way, and why can't we see that and understand?

Then 5 minutes after she leaves my room, Mom comes in, and tells me the whole argument. For a third time. From HER point of view. Oh, joyous is me. And they both wonder why I just tell them "You and her just don't get along." They are always like "what? What are you talking about? What do you mean we don't get along? It's HER! IT'S ALL HER FAULT!!!! It's NOT ME AT ALL!!!" I don't understand why they don't just leave me out of it and sort it out, I never take sides, I just don't want to be bothered by it, but alas, I am apparently the sole voice of reason in our household, and THAT, more than anything else, speaks VOLUMES about how crazy my family is. If I am the only voice of reason, shit's broke beyond all hope of repair. :-)

Which, probably just makes us like every other dysfunctional family.

Then, there's people like my nephew. He may be the craziest one of all. I have 3 nephews, there's various levels of craziness in each of them (don't even get me started on my nieces), but the one I hang around with most is probably the craziest. I mean, he's functional in the sense that, like me, he can hold down a job and hasn't killed anyone that I know of, but him and his friend check the weather via weather.com. This in itself does not make one crazy. I choose to check my weather via wunderground.com. Also a weather site, but the difference is, you go to weather.com with your zip code and you get the current temp and conditions like sunny, cloudy, etc. You want something else, you have to dig for it. Forecast? Find the link that says 5-day, 10-day, etc and click that. Radar? find another link and click that. None of this is displayed on the main page. Which isn't really much of a hassle, but you go to wunderground.com with your zip code and BAM everything's there, current temp, conditions ranging from up to the second wind speed, direction, moon phase, current radar, 5 AND 7 day forecast, ALL ON THE SAME PAGE. You want animated zoomed in radar, it's two clicks away, and you don't have to scan the page for the word RADAR either, there's a goddamn radar image RIGHT THERE you just click on it, can't miss it. So, I prefer going to wunderground, and they constantly tell me that wunderground sucks. For, no apparent reason that I can find. They just want me to use weather.com. I'm not sure if they get some sort of kickback from weather.com for bringing another user to the site, or they are just trying to make me conform to their views on the world, but I am not a conformist. I like wunderground and i'm sticking with it, because it's easier and I LIKE EASY.

So this is what makes him crazy. One, he's badgering me over something as ridiculous as what weather site I use to check the forecast. And I don't mean just once or twice. He's been doing it for like THREE YEARS now. And he's all superior about it, like "OMG you're still using wunderground? LOLZORS U suxx0rs!" That, and he constantly asserts that he is NOT argumentative or crazy like the rest of our family. That in and of itself scares me. I mean, just to be born in this family makes you instantly crazy. But at least most of us KNOW we are batshit insane. I personally go through a checklist every day to make sure I'm not accidentally murdering an innocent person because I'm a loon. No, if I kill someone, they GODDAMN WELL DESERVE IT. But not this guy. Oh noes, Mr Bill. There's no checklist, nothing in his mind that goes HEY DICKFACE YOU MIGHT BE MAKING AN ERROR HERE no, just full on mad-train running full speed off the tracks, through the woods and into batshit insano-land.

The only question I really have now is, is it his friend that is helping him along the path of insanity? Is he doing it on his own? Or is MY insanity having an effect on him? I can't really help it if it's MY insanity doing it. I mean, if it is me, then he is just shit out of luck, because I can't help him. He works in the cubicle next to me, he follows me around waiting for me to do something stupid so he can laugh at it, and this much exposure to my insane awesomeness has probably blown both his gaskets.

What, you didn't know the human body had mental gaskets? GODDAMMIT stop arguing with me, I told you, I'm a BIOLOGIST. We know these things. Blown gaskets are bad, no matter where they are.