Sheep: Black, Felonious Ones.

I have Black Sheep in my family. Not just one, but four at last count. That’s a lot for a family that’s pretty small to begin with. But, this is just one of those realizations we have at some point when we become adults, right? The awareness that our family is completely dysfunctional and should be hidden away in a closet and replaced with some Pleasantville-type family (I would totally love Reese Witherspoon as a sister, but that’s for another day….). One of those families where mom makes all visitors feel like they’ve been a part of the family for years, dad shares all the same interests as every boyfriend, gramma makes warm chocolate chip cookies all day every day, and cousins hang out and talk about whose grad. program was tougher. The MondayFamily is nothing like that at all. NOTHING, I tell you. I love them all, more than anyone who’s met them could possible imagine, so it makes me feel terrible to be so ashamed of some of them. But for some reason, I can’t help it.

I think I’ve known we weren’t normal for years, but I was reminded again on Friday when CousinMonday (CM) was arrested for Medicaid fraud and forging prescriptions. She was on TV. ON TV, people. With her picture. And her name scrolling across the bottom. Egads. GrammaMonday turned on the 6 o’clock news and there she was. (It pains me to think everyone in my high school saw this and pains me even more to think I actually still care what people in high school think. But then again, don’t we all…..secretly?). Given that mine and CM’s lives are so dissimilar, we, surprisingly(!), lost touch a long time ago. I hate both that fact and my general embarrassment at the situation, because she’s obviously fallen on touch times. To try to forge two prescriptions for 130 oxycotin (don’t pharmacists write prescriptions in amounts of 5s, 10s, and 30s, not 130s?) and then pay for it with your Medicaid card has got to be a cry for help. Her four class E felonies and 2 charges of fraud have her looking at 10 years in jail.

CM is not immune to causing the family grief. Besides weighing in around 350 pounds, this is the same cousin that dropped out of high school at 14 and had a baby at 17 (with the most redneck, airbrushed t-shirt wearin’, five teeth sportin’, beater pickup truck drivin’, basic grammar slaughterin’ 16 year-old EVER). In an almost K-Fed type situation, he is now looking like the better parent. Not to be outdone by the felony charges, she apparently posted bail, went to work, decided to close up the convenience store by inviting all of her friends to come in and party, and then got fired. I guess if you’re going to go out, do it with a bang. Just one of these days, I’d like to leave a job like that.

But let’s not forget the other sheep, each of which I could devote an essay to. UncleMonday, for example, has been known to sit in his front yard in one of those cheap metal lawn chairs in the middle of summer in his whitie-tighties with the sprinkler running. And a can of Busch in each hand. He’s the king of get-rich schemes and once thought he could make it rich renting out his old garage to banks so they could store their processed checks. His sister, AuntMonday has had six husbands, totaled three cars, filed for bankruptcy twice, and smokes cigarettes while IN the tanning bed. And we can’t forget GrandparentsMonday who vote Libertarian (that alone is sheep-worthy in my book), think that the government really IS building a toll-road from Canada to Mexico with Spain collecting the tolls, wouldn’t let me watch the Cosby show as a child because of the “colored-people,” and still toot around the yard in a Model T like it’s 1937.

But for some reason I positively adore every single one of these people. I could live without the grief CM causes everyone, but she was always the sweetest girl growing up. I think somewhere she’s still got it in her, and I hope she can get the help she needs. Perhaps I’ve been fooling myself all of these years with the idea that mine is the only dysfunctional family, but it makes me feel better to know that if we are, we’ve got enough dysfunction to go around.


GMon’y