Wholesome family entertainment

I really don't know what most normal families do when they get together. Eat? Play games? Have adult conversation? Play sports or the Wii or something, I guess? Well, we definitely have the eating part down. And we are definitely game players in our family. But that may be where the similarities end. Quite frequently we manage to find amusing forms of entertainment.

- There was the time we took straws - one end goes in the mouth, the other end in the armpit. And then you make music. I think we had a lovely piece all worked out to perform. Did we actually perform it anywhere? I can't remember. I would hope not, but I'm guessing we did.

- Then there was the time I bought a waxing machine. It was before I ever went to beauty school. A girl at work just said, "Hey, waxers are on sale at Sally's! Want to come get one with me?" Why not?? Why shouldn't any untrained shmuck feel qualified to stick burning wax on someone's flesh? Well, it was such a novelty, it turned into post Sunday-dinner entertainment. Quick - pin down a brother-in-law and attack the uni-brow! Once it's on - there's no way but off.

Then there was my poor 16 year-old nephew. Apparently if you're on acne medication, you're not supposed to wax. Who knew? So that unibrow came off - along with about 10 layers of skin. (Um, sorry? Hope that goes over well in high school?) Only it wasn't apparent until a few hours later. So in the meantime, after waxing other various body parts on different family members, we were running out of things to wax. 'What else can we wax?" we wondered. "Well," said my nephew, "I have a hairy stomach." Why the heck not? So we put some on, rip off the strip, and he screams like a 10 year-old girl. He was freaking out. Couldn't believe how bad it hurt. "Um, Zac?" I said, "The only problem is that now you have one little bald spot in the middle of a hairy stomach." So the rest came off too.

And apparently, the whole acne medication episode didn't sink in to my sister. A few weeks later, she had me wax her armpits. We'd done armpits before with no problem. This time it looked a little more raw. We couldn't figure it out - maybe the wax was just hotter this time so it looked more red? Well, as time went on, it looked more and more raw...and my sister spent the night crying with washcloths under her ferociously wounded armpits until her husband finally yelled at her that she was never allowed to wax anything again. Maybe a week or so later, she finally mused, "Maybe it's because I had been putting Retin-A on my armpits." Um, what????

- Then there's the Indian leg wrestling. I'm assuming you know what that is. Well, just take note: the first time you bring your boyfriend home to meet the family, you probably shouldn't involve Indian leg wrestling. The first time Ryan met my family, we had just had a big, full dinner, when somehow the topic of Indian leg wrestling came up and my sister had to start bragging about her wicked skills. Granted, she's pretty good, but it brought out Ryan's competitive side, and he assured her he could kick her butt. Well, after so much trash-talking, the match was on: Ryan and my sister, on the floor. One, two, three..... Fffffffrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr!!! Yes, Ryan totally ripped one right in front of my whole family. Dead silence followed. For about 5 stunned seconds. Until everyone erupted in laughter. Whoops. So much for first impressions.

(Maybe that got him over all reservations with our family though, because he's also done interpretive dancing in a Darth Vader costume for some family entertainment in recent years....)

- SO. Come New Year's Eve, ringing in 2009. We knew we had hours to kill. We knew we'd be up late. What would we do to entertain ourselves that long? Well, basically, we took my sister from this:

(Around 9pm)

To this:

(11pm It was around this point that she called work and begged to not have to come in the next day).

To this:

(12:30am. Happy New Year! The point at which I keep saying how afraid I am that if we keep going her hair is going to turn into sausage. She wants platinum.)

To this:

(2am. The point at which her hair does turn into sausage. I'm a little shaky and vowing never to do hair again.)

To this:



All I can say is A: There is a reason I never take anyone from near-black to platinum in one night. B: Thank goodness she still has hair. C: I am never doing that again. But D: I think she looks awesome. Can you believe she's almost 45??? And E: Um, don't touch your hair too much or it will fall off, ok?


Yeah, let's just re-emphasize that transition:



Holy cow. I think I aged 10 years from the stress.