Saturday, January 27th

Nothing worth writing about happened yesterday. Well actually, I wasn't really home yesterday...so maybe something did happen, but I wasn't there. I decided that on days where I have nothing new to write about, I'll tell you a story about something that happened a while back. From now on, these entries will just say Flashback.

In October or November of last year, my aunt was supposed to be leaving for a fishing trip in another state. See, everyone in my house knows that because she drinks so much, pops so many pills, and doesn't have a job, she doesn't exactly need to follow any sort of sleep routine. Therefore, she typically sleeps all day and is awake all night. When she knows ahead of time that she needs to be in a certain place in the morning, she flips out and drinks a little extra brandy (and takes a few extra muscle relaxers) so that she passes out earlier and can wake up in the morning. This has led to many, many problems.

So now, back to the story at hand. It's October or November, and she has to be at the airport in the morning to catch her flight. She passes out for the night, completely wasted, at around 10pm. I'm sound asleep in my room when I'm woken up by the sound of somebody screaming my name. At first I thought I was dreaming, but then I heard my aunt's voice screaming my uncle's name, too. I drag myself out of bed and walk into the living room where I find my aunt laying on her stomach, and her face is sitting in a puddle of blood.

The End.

Ok, ok just kidding. So, my aunt is laying there with her blood all over the hardwood floors (oh my god, that's gonna leave a stain!) and is looking up at me helplessly. I help her to her feet and notice that she has not only completely busted open her chin...but there's like, meat hanging down. Sorry for that visual, but as you can imagine, it was pretty grotesque. As always, I got to play doctor and clean and bandage her wound. She really should have gotten stitches, but she knew she'd be at the hospital all night and wanted to sleep instead. (Plus, she didn't want to hear the lecture from the doctor about how it would have bled a lot less if she didn't have so much alcohol in her system, and that maybe she should get some help with her addictions....but she didn't say that, of course.)

She did, however, tell me that what had happened was that she was sleeping (passed out) on the sofa, and got up to use the bathroom, but tripped over the dog.

Judging by the fact that the dog was sleeping on the sofa...and the coffee table was very, very crooked, it didn't take a genius to figure out that she woke up to use the bathroom and fell over the coffee table. My uncle and I played stupid though and didn't say anything to her.

Since this happened, I've gotten yelled at by my aunt any time I've left a chair at the table pushed out a little bit. "I could hurt myself!" she screams. Maybe my uncle and I should invest in some edge & corner guards for the house. We can pretend like there's a baby...but without the smelly diapers.