Welcome to My Parlor

[inspired by Sunday Scribblings]

I loved the scene in the sitcom "Designing Women" where they talked about their crazy relatives. They said that most people would be ashamed and hide them away. But not in the south, where people brought them into the parlor to show them off.

In honor of the Sunday Scribblings prompt, even though I'm not in the south, I am showing off some of my crazy relatives in the parlor.

One used to say, "whoa, Ford," each time he parked the car in the garage.

Mom grew up in The Depression. The house was shared with five adults and two (later three) kids. All the grownups worked whatever jobs they could find and the shifts sometimes overlapped. Only Mom's Grandpa didn't work.
One day when she home sick, my mom and her Grandpa watched nearly everyone leave for work. Mom's mother cleared the breakfast mess and did some straightening up. She then collected all the throw rugs from the house and took them to the porch where she shook them out. She swept the floors and then returned the rugs. A little later she left for her job as a cook.
Soon after that, my mom's aunt came home from one of her jobs. She made lunch for whoever got a lunch break and cleaned up the lunch mess. She then collected all the throw rugs from the house and took them to the porch where she shook them out. She swept the floors and then returned the rugs.
Grandpa told my mom, "We're either the cleanest people in town, or the dirtiest. I don't know which."

I don't know if it is related to that or not, but my mom is now (and has been all my life anyway) an uber-neatnik. No, even more obsessive than you think. Unless you're family. Then you know.

My dad's sister-in-law (yes, that makes her my aunt) from New York City visited our small-town-in-the-Midwest house in the 1960's. She pulled shut all the blinds and curtains in the bedroom and she kept them shut 24 hours a day for the full week they were at our house.

When she went into labor, my Mom got behind the wheel of the car and drove my dad 70 miles to the hospital where she gave birth to me.

Decades after the shoe factory closed my hometown still had the "5:30 whistle," a siren that blew at 5:30 p.m. Monday through Saturday. [Try explaining that to visitors to the town when you're a kid. "What's that?" "The 5:30 whistle." "What's it mean?" "That it is 5:30."] I know this isn't about my family, but maybe it was something in the water.

I can't stand silverware handles or straws pointing at my face. I reach out and push them to the side.

There are more, but I think the parlor is quite full enough now. You'll have to come back another time.