Pet Peeves and other things that annoy me #4

Andie McDowell

I don’t know what it is about this woman, but just the thought of her makes me cringe. Watching her in a movie is almost as bad as the sound of an alarm clock going off in the morning at the same time your 3 month old kid starts screaming and your neighbor’s yappy little dog decides to get all excited. I’ll even throw in the high-pitched screeching sound of the 1987 minivan that drives by every morning at 6am. It’s her voice, her acting, even the way she tries to sell me wrinkle cream. Clearly, she has wrinkles. I’m not the only one out there that has these feelings. Other people dislike her so much that they’ve created Andie McDowell hate clubs. I don’t have the guts to join. God might be watching.

A holiday isn't a holiday without a little inappro.

There’s one thing you can always count on at a Burleson family gathering - Someone is going to say something completely inappropriate. It’s just a given. And the more wine consumed, the more inappropriate. Break out the whiskey or scotch, and you’d better put on your facemask, because something very crude, rude, and completely uncalled for is going to come flying out of someone’s mouth and hit you right in the face.

At Robin’s 50th birthday weekend, it was Chip. Give the gay boy too many bloody mary’s at breakfast and he starts talking about Jake’s girlfriend’s boobs in front of the entire family in the pool. He doesn’t even like boobs!

Over Thanksgiving, it was my FIL. We were all enjoying a nice dinner that evening, sitting around the table giving thanks, and WHAM! Out of nowhere, an Obama joke flew out of Bob’s mouth that left us all sitting there with our mouths wide open and speechless…..for 0.2 seconds. And then the room broke out in laughter. I never said the inappropriateness wasn’t funny. It’s always funny. Most of the time it’s hilarious. Hilarious and completely inappropriate.

But Christmas 2008 had to top it all. It was Christmas eve and we were all settling in for a long winter’s nap. Ha! Kidding. We were actually exchanging our 5 dollar gifts and partaking in a few too many adult beverages. The last gift was a gingerbread house kit and each couple had 15 minutes to put it together. (I know this sounds very cute, like something Martha Stewart’s family does. Don’t judge.) After 15 minutes of destroying the house with nasty icing and candy, we all brought our houses in to be judged. We were admiring Chip and Noel’s (Chip’s boyfriend) cute little house when Will commented to Noel that the eave was supposed to be over the front door of the house, not the backdoor. (I think Will was just upset that our “mobile home destroyed by a tornado” came in last place.) And all of a sudden, WHAM! Noel responds with, “Well, duh Will…everyone knows we like the backdoor better!”

Ahhh…family. Gotta love ‘em and all of their inappropriateness.