Family Funnies

Believe it or not, I have some colorful characters in my family. The partial purpose of this blog (although I'm not sure what the full purpose is) was for me to chronicle some familial stories. This purpose has been achieved, as I had a very good time of reading some of my posts from about 9 months ago (that I’d already forgotten some of) just last week. They were as funny as the day I’d written them. Anyway, we had a couple of family members over on Friday and the elder of the two who shall remain nameless told a couple of good ones, so I thought I’d write them down.

WARNING: These stories may not be suitable for prim and proper, but they are familial stories nonetheless, worthy of being passed down from generation to generation. Well, at least in MY family.

Anyway, we’ll call the two nameless relatives Dinky and Johannes, just for anonymity.

Story #1 – Dinky proceeds to tell us about his scar on the side of his face that runs from his ear down to his jaw bone. He says that in 1946 he was having a tooth pulled and the dentist was having a tough time getting it out. Dinky says the dentist had his knee up on Dinky’s shoulder and was just about to tear his head off. This left Dinky with a jaw that hung very crookedly off to the right of his face. The dentist said just to eat a lot of lettuce and that would help the jaw. Several days later, after lots of lettuce chewing, the jaw was not getting any better.

So, the left jaw begins to swell… and swell… and swell to a horrible size, and the parents of Dinky decide to take him to the Mayo Hospital 100 miles or so from their home. Dinky said they stuck something up on the roof of his mouth to reset the jaw and in the process they tore his mouth open three-quarters of an inch on either side at the corners. They also put a drain in his jaw and gave him 3,000 (I’m guessing a slight exaggeration) shots of penicillin in his rear.

Classic Dinky-ism: (pointing to my red tablecloth with white snowflakes) “This was my rear (only he didn’t say rear).” We’ll never look at that tablecloth the same again.

I was, of course, horrified by the barbaric medicine and circumstances. He said his dad was told that Dinky only had a 50/50 chance of living. Well, time came for him to get out of the hospital, but he was going to have to go back several times a week for treatment and checkups, so the family sent him home with the JANITOR of the hospital. He stayed in an extra room at the janitor’s house while recuperating.

This fascinated me, too. A terribly sick boy staying at the hospital janitor’s house for convalescent care. But I guess the hub came halfway around the world at 15, and didn’t speak the language…

Anyway, he said when he went to the clinic, there was a mother and daughter standing on the curb waiting for a cab, and the daughter screamed when she saw Dinky. He said he was just skin and bones. He was only 14 years old. I was just amazed by the whole story.

Long story, short, Dinky made a full recovery and that’s the story of the scar by his left ear. I’d always just thought it was a wrinkle. Dinky will be 80 this year.

Story #2 – Shorter, I promise, but it is funny and deserves to be saved. Dinky and Johannes are on a road trip recently and they stop in a local convenience store with a horribly nasty bathroom. They are both disgusted by the bathroom so much that they discuss its condition. Well, further on down the road, someone passes gas.

Dinky yells, “Pull over! Pull over!” as if there is some great emergency.

Driver of said vehicle pulls quickly over thinking something is horribly wrong.

Dinky proclaims, “Someone has poop on their shoes from THAT BATHROOM!”

I’ll be leaving out the bible verses for this entry, just because I’m thinking the nature of this post isn’t exactly reverent (not that many of my posts are!).

However, I thank God for giving me my family – the whole mess.

He knew I’d get a kick out of them!