The bitch who stole Christmas

I usually have the unhappy task of visiting several peoples houses during Christmas. Not everyone in my family gets along, so it's food and presents Times six. It's freaking exhausting. I wouldn't do it at all except for the sake of the kids. To help this process along, I decided to go to my dad's house out in the country the day before Christmas eve so I could spend some time with him. This unfortunately means visiting step family too.

On these occasions I usually bring my dad a 55 gallon drum of Chivas Regal. He seems to like it and need it because of the crazy Jerry Springer shit that is always going on at his house.

This past year wasn't any different. There was however, a new fly in the ointment. A presence that brought all factions together against a common foe.

This lady I'll call "Harpy" is the wife of one of my dad's war buddies. She came down to Texas for a visit with her son who lives here. Her son wouldn't or couldn't have her at his apartment so my dad said it was ok for her to stay with his family for the holidays.

I met Harpy on and off through the years and knew she was kind of uptight and obnoxious. Her husband was always around to mediate and shoot her dirty looks when she crossed the line. She was a severe looking, heavy set 60 year old woman, always dressed in a mu mu or house dress.

Well hubby wasn't around this Christmas so Harpy went into full bore beotch mode.

You would think as an invited guest, at Christmas, 1000 miles away from home, a person would be on good behavior. BZZZZT WRONG!

We all sat down in the living room for a visit. We were just shooting the breeze when Harpy interjects: "Hammer do you ever regret not doing anything with your life?" I was taken aback by this question that's for sure. The room went silent. I looked at her and said, "What? Besides going to college, working my way up into management in a major corporation, working as an accountant, systems analyst, then starting my own successful business and raising three adopted kids?" She didn't say anything else. I was pissed off and wondering what triggered that shit.

My dad's friend Chuey showed up. He was a disabled Vietnam vet just like my dad and a talented musician. So we went up on the porch and opened up the big bottle of Chivas. Chuey played his guitar for us and sang some ballads in Spanish. We were having a good time. Then Harpy opens her mouth in the middle of a song, "Don't you know anything besides Messkin?" Chuey being a nice guy, gritted his teeth and said "well.. what would you like to hear madam?" My dad spoke up and said, "what about something patriotic?" "As long as it's not messkin" Harpy bellowed. "I'll do you one better I'll do a patriotic Christmas song" Chuey replied.

Chuey began a beautiful rendition of White Christmas on his Twelve string guitar. It was magic. Half way through the song, Harpy shrieks, "That's not patriotic!" Chuey muffled his guitar strings, straightened up and said "Madam that song was written for the troops during WWII who were dreaming of having Christmas with their families instead of fighting and dying thousands of miles from home." Trying to diffuse the situation, I told him, "I apologize for the interruption would you please continue your song?"

But the magic was broken. Chuey put down his Guitar took a swig of Chivas and said. Madam, I have known you for all of 15 minutes and all I see is a hateful racist bitch who is trying to ruin the Christmas of my good friend and his family.

Then Harpy suddenly lunged at her messkin nemesis. I'll start off by saying that Harpy is about 5 foot 10 and 275 lbs and Chuy is an IBM (itty bitty Mexican) About 5 foot 4 and 160 dripping wet. Harpy had Chuey in a head lock and they were rolling around on the ground gouging and biting. Chuey was yelling "Get off me you crazy white bitch!"

I reached deep down and found my most commanding voice, This is FUCKING CHRISTMAS! GET UP OFF THE GROUND AND ACT LIKE A CIVILIZED HUMAN BEING. I was surprised how loudly my voice boomed. It worked! Everyone went silent. The foes got up, dusted themselves off and we went and ate Christmas dinner.

Right after eating, I hugged my dad and told him I was sorry he was stuck with Harpy for 7 more days but I really really had to go.

As I was driving off, Harpy yelled across the yard, calling Chuey a dirty Mexican pervert. The last thing I saw in the rearview mirror as I floored the accelerator, was Chuey tackling Harpy's legs and knocking her on her butt in the middle of the driveway.

Sigh.... next year I'm bringing a tranquilzer gun.