Invasion of the chainsaw turkey carver

Yesterday afternoon (Saturday, January 3, 2009) was the annual visit of Carol, her daughter (our niece “Debbie”), her daughter’s husband (“Kevin”), and Carol’s granddaughter (our niece’s daughter “Christina”).
First, a little explanation (which will take up a lot of this blog).
—A) “Carol” is my wife’s brother’s first wife — he’s been married four times — the only wife my wife’s mother, and her now-deceased aunt, approved of. (“Thank goodness for Carol; I don’t know why he ever left.”)
Carol was my wife’s matron-of-honor, although that was more convenience.
My Best-Man was my sister’s first husband (she’s been married four times too) — also a matter of convenience.
Carol, like my wife’s brother, is two years older than us, making her almost 67.
(Both my wife and I turn 65 this year — in fact, my wife already has.)
Carol and Linda’s brother had only one child, Debbie, who will turn 40 this year.
Debbie married Kevin almost 15 years ago. Kevin is the so-called chainsaw turkey carver, and is quite a bit older than Debbie.
He will turn 49 this year.
Together they all live in the tiny humble suburban abode Carol inherited from her parents.
This seems a bit strange to us.
We can’t imagine living with parents, and while Carol’s parents are long-gone, Debbie is living with her mother.
—B) Kevin didn’t actually carve the Thanksgiving turkey with a chainsaw.
It was an electric carving-knife, but he seems the type.
He kept madly wielding it like a chainsaw.
“Brap-brap-brap!” from their kitchen.
Finally a steaming pile of turkey detritus was presented as our Thanksgiving feast.
And the disembodied remains of a broken turkey were unceremoniously heaved into the garbage.
—C) Additionally, Kevin’s outdoor Christmas-lights didn’t actually drop the level of Lake Erie when plugged in, as reported years ago.
But Kevin had thousands of outdoor Christmas-lights strung helter-skelter all over their house, and in the trees.
And they did blow a fuse.
And I saw their electric-meter, which was spinning like a 78 rpm record.
Kevin is a “Git-R-Dun” type.
A child that never grew up, my wife says.
He has a $50,000 custom Harley motorcycle, and has had it a while.
“47,000 miles,” he trumpeted; “and the drive-sprocket wore out.
It’s just aluminum,” he said. “The Gilmer-belt jumps when I accelerate.”
Um, my motorcycle doesn’t even have a primary-case. It’s direct to the tranny through gears.
His primary-case is an antiquated design.
Beyond that, where did he ever get $50,000?
It snowed quite a bit recently, so he got roped into plowing driveways.
18+ hours without let-up. “I drink gallons of coffee.
And I’m excellent with a plow,” he bragged.
“Ya couldn’t wedge a pencil in the space I leave next to a car.
I watch my flags, and plow pretty close.
Ya can’t match me in a pull-back,” he said.

Our dog was thrilled.
“Guests, Yippee!”
Running and bouncing around like a loose cannon, and happily attacking Carol, who dislikes dogs.
“Unclean;” yet don’t eat her lettuce. “—So it’s been in the refrigerator two months; that rot won’t hurtcha! Just cut it away.”
Our grandniece, Christina, was intimidated at first.
“Be very careful with this dog,” I warned her.
The dog was jumping all over her at first.
“Doesn’t she ever tire out?” Carol asked.
In five minutes; never in a million years!
After about three hours, and never ending come-when-calleds for no treat, our dog had had enough.
But not snappy; just bushed.
For some reason, Kevin unholstered his cellphone.
“It’s no longer showing me the time, hon.”
“Maybe something needs to be reset,” Debbie said.
I notice it was a Motorola RAZR, just like we have. “Here, gimme that a second. Maybe I can reset it.” (Kevin is not a technology geek.)
Well, it’s T-Mobile, not Verizon like we have. So it’s showing me the T-Mobile screen.
I notice a soft-key is for Menu, so hit it. I get a bunch of icons.
“So what’s the tools icon?” I ask Debbie; “this wrench icon over here?”
I get some clock-reset menu and then hit that; “You’re on a roll now, Uncle Bob.”
Nothing seemed to happen so I gave up — handed it back to Kevin.
“Now it’s displaying the time; what didja do, Uncle Bob?”
“I didn’t do anything!” I said. “All I did was hold it in my hand.”
The old magic waazoo. Just like our appliance-man repairing our old freezer by merely showing up.
“Both my ‘pyooter and the monitor have separate sleep-circuits, and it’s usually the monitor that sleeps first, in which case the display goes blank.
But if the monitor is getting a continuing feed of some sort, the ‘pyooter may sleep first, in which case we get the ‘Lucy-in-the-Sky-with-Diamonds’ display, the ‘pyooter sleep display.”
“What’s that up there?” Debbie asks. “Looks like a cable-jack.”
“That’s what it is,” I say. “But actually it’s an audio output. I have an audio output in every room. I wired this whole house for hi-fi stereo, when we built it.”
“So you could have surround-sound in every room,” Kevin said.
“So where’s your stereo, Uncle Bob?” Debbie asked.
“In that closet,” I said. “Been there 18 years, since we moved here.
I’m more interested in my ‘pyooter,” I said, pointing at my rig.
“Yeah, and you can download pretty good audio on your computer,” they said; it which point I played my Little Richard “Tutti-Fruiti” music-file on my rig. I have good ‘pyooter speakers.

RE: “Annual visit........” —Usually the only time we see these people is once a year, a Christmas visit. This is though they only live about 20 miles away.

My wife of 41 years is “Linda.”

“Custom Harley” means it was custom-made; like by hand. It has a souped-up Harley Davidson motorcycle engine, which custom-bikers venerate.

A “Gilmer-belt” is a toothed rubber belt, running on toothed sprockets; a fairly recent technology. —Previously a toothed rubber belt could wear out.

A “primary-case” was a case encasing belts or chains from the engine to the transmission (“tranny”); in which case the engine is rotating the same direction as the rear tire. A geared primary has the engine rotating the reverse of the transmission and rear tire; so the transmission is rotating the same as the rear tire. (The engine has to be reverse to use primary gearing.)

RE: “I watch my flags.......” —The snowplow on the front of a four-wheel-drive pickup truck has vertical flags at each end, so the driver knows where the plow-ends are, even though the plow is covered with snow.

A “pull-back” is to drop the plow next to a garage-door, and reverse to clear snow from in front of the garage-door.

Our current dog is “Scarlett;” a rescue Irish-Setter. She’s three-plus, and is our sixth Irish-Setter.