What Shade of Crazy

Who...The...Fuck... brings a camera to a funeral?

Apparently, my step-mother.

It's true, I could not, would not make this up. I don't believe in defaming someones good name with lies... But if they do something stupid, crazy and or crass, I may pass it on, especially if it is so over the top as to make everyone else in the world go, "WHAT?!?" and get a look on their face so priceless that you wish you'd set up the camera before you popped out with the news.

Yes, this is how fucked-up my family is. A camera at a funeral. Now, people, I didn't rush to this judgment when I opened the email and saw the first four pictures of the flowers I sent and the picture table that was laid out with different pics of Gran and the family. Were those all that I received, I would have given the benefit of the doubt; that maybe someone had casually said it was a shame that I couldn't be there, or see the lovely bouquet I had sent, or the many family photos of Gran which were so touching, and then someone else said, "Well, I have a camera in the car, when the first viewing is over, I'll take some pics to send her during the break before the evening wake-session." I could understand that, and that's what I thought when I sent my step-mother the thank you email for the pics, which I thought was very good of her to send considering the strained-non-speaking nature of our current relationship....

It was after I sent this email that I opened the last picture, and friends, this is what convinced me that someone over there, if not all of them have completely gone over the edge of reason... Forgive my bad taste in posting it, but I couldn't possibly describe it, you'd swear I was lying! And here is the more scary-to-me-than-anything-else part, ready?-- My sister and I were discussing the pics, and we realized that they were taken at the Actual Funeral, and it still took us a few minutes to deduce how completely jacked that was. It wasn't in any way an instant reaction, it had to dawn on us. Now that was quite a OMG-Wow (and not in a good way) on our part. Then again, we were raised around these people...

We are in the same dye-lot... we are a similar shade of crazy.

As the conversation progressed, we started laughing so hard that we could scarcely breathe. I mean the choices were: to laugh about it, OR, to off ourselves and my children to make sure these genes were not allowed to propagate and infect the rest of the world with this top-shelf-level-of-crazy. Seriously. Baring issues like incest and living in a meth lab; I'm pretty sure snapping shots of a coffin about to go into the ground which contains your mother-in-law of 28 years who you were on Good Terms with and sending the pic to your step-children while none of the 5-grown-actual-blood-children of the dead woman, who were all in attendance said anything about how crass, crude, and absolutely, unbelievably fucked-up even having the nerve to do flash photography at a funeral is... pretty much lands us in the top 10% of crazy families in the US, if not world-wide. I know I come from this crazy-lot, but I'm pretty sure this would have been stopped by any other family even if the daughter-in-law and mother-in-law were on bad terms. I'm just guessing, obviously, I Don't Know.

What I do know, is that despite the level of insanity, this family functions very well in regular society. Houdini & Copperfield have nothing on the illusionists in this family. We hold good jobs, have very nice homes, and in general, seem like upstanding members of the community. But we're crazy enough to allow cameras at funerals. We deserve a 10 page color spread article in Psychology Today.

It got me to thinking about the spouses we attract. And if this degree of crazy can attract and maintain long-term marriages with their mates, then the mates must be crazy too. And the more I thought about it, I came to deduce that everyone is crazy; just in their own way. And maybe we attract people to us that are at or about the same level of crazy as we are. That may be how long-term relationships are able to work, both people involved are operating at the same level of insanity brought about by their genetics and upbringing. Then again, I'm not sure if that's comforting or disturbing...

But, hey, the next time your spouse or family does something embarrassing and crazy and you want to never again have to admit that you are related to them, remember this...

At least they didn't bring a camera to a funeral.