There are members of my family who exist without filters.  Some of these family members are also hard of hearing…add a social situation and you sometimes get a powder keg.  Yup, it’s talk about mama day at the O.K.  corral.  I love my mom.  Believe me when I say this, she is one of the sweetest, hardest working people you will ever meet.  She is also naive, sheltered, and has led a very isolated life.  The town she lived in for most of her life had a population of about 10,000 people and one ethnicity…hick.  When we moved her here she immediately became concerned about other races (mostly that she might live next to them) and we reinforced that she would be fine.  I was as worried as she was.  This is the woman that I took to the mall in Birmingham, Alabama and she said (always too loudly) “I have never seen so many blacks in all my life!”  Why does the earth never open up and swallow you when you really need it to?  I explained to her, after our swift departure, that we were in the minority in Alabama…and most definitely in that shop, so it would probably be for the best not to point that out to large quantities of large black women.  Especially  ones who looked like they could snap us in two while holding their purchases in the other hand and never break into a sweat.

These types of situations have become less common over the last two years and I thought we were making headway into diversity training….until last Saturday….when my son graduated…with a little person.  I knew we were not going to be early for the service, but as it turned out we were stuck in the stairwell with several other family members (not our own) as the graduating class walked in front of us entering the auditorium.  She commented on the Asians, she commented on the Blacks, she definitely commented on the large number of Hispanics, and then (proof that God has a sense of humor) out of the corner of my right eye I see a small person.  I quickly try to divert mom’s attention “Oh look mom it’s raining toads!” but it was too late.  “A MIDGET’  Do you see that little ol’ midget?  Back there, way back in the back…it’s a midget.  I wonder if they had to special order her coat?  you know JoElla?  Bob’s wife’s sister-in-law?  Well she had a boy that grew up to be a midget.”…It went on until we were seated.  Then when her name was announced and she accepted her diploma I thought mom was going to break my ribs jabbing and pointing on stage. I just smile and nod and look at her like I have no frigging clue who she is.

My dad was just as bad, or worse.  We would always turn him in a different direction if we saw someone of Asian descent approaching.  You see, Dad was convinced he could speak Chinese.  So he did.  Loudly.  We have a local Japanese steak house that serves people at the grill and has a little show as they prepare your meal.  It seemed we had forgotten that Pa couldn’t be trusted around our eastern friends.  Our waitress came out and took our orders, and that went smoothly…but then came our chef.  Our chef was a somewhat heavy, very Asian, man that spoke little to no English and didn’t smile much.  Well, I guess Pa assumed that if you can’t speak English you can’t understand it either so he leans over to my son and without whispering says “if anyone had told me back in WWII that one of these bastards would be serving me dinner…I would’ve shot him.”  (crickets chirping) We”re glad Pa doesn’t eat much and that we were watching the cook prepare the meal. And more than once on The Great Western Vacation upon seeing anyone with almond shaped eyes he could be heard chirping “chinky, chinky, chonk” which is Pa speaking Chinese.  Now even if they didn’t speak English I’m pretty damn sure they knew that wasn’t Chinese.  Pa would just cackle with glee, and damnit you would end up laughing too…mostly at him because he was so tickled.  So there we were the idiot laughing racist family traveling cross country in our mini-van (cue banjos-fade to black).

I’m sure if you ask my children they would tell you that if my filters aren’t gone they are seriously impaired.  I believe, however that most of my snafus occur because I am not always aware of who’s around me.  A problem that is worsening with time.  I’ve been known to make snide comments about wait staff, boyfriends, girlfriends, and restaurant guests that were seated closer than I realized.  My family tells me that I am too loud, too honest (is that even possible?), too short…oh wait that’s not…unaware of my surroundings…the list goes on and on.  Perhaps it’s just that children are always embarassed by their parents, even perfect ones like me.  Yet, I rarely went out of my way to embarass them like my dad did.  He would order possum in restaurants, or ‘coon and then upon being told they didn’t have these things ask what roadkill they did have.  He would tell my dates that the weren’t nearly as ugly, bow-legged, pock-marked, stupid … as I had said they were.  Once, a date asked if he might use our phone, “sure”, dad said “just flush it when you’re through.”  Poor kid nearly ran out of the house!  Never asked me out again…probably told people too because I didn’t get asked out much.

In some ways I kind of hope my filters go.  It would be kind of nice to get away with even more under the guise of senility.  “you’re ugly and tomorrow you’ll still be ugly’ Okay, I need to work on my zingers.  Recently we had a cold snap and our temperatures plummetted into the single digits.  My sister came for  a visit.  Now I must tell you that my sister exaggerates everything.  She’s never hungry, she’s starving.  She’s never cold, she’s freezing and if she’s sick she’s about to die.  Well, she walks in the door in all of her cold gear,  i.e. gloves, hat, scarf, and coat.  First she announces that it’s colder than a well digger’s (and this is a direct quote) “you know what.”  You might think she’s too ladylike to say ass except that her next statement is “I think I nearly froze my ass off.”  Without even thinking I said, “Oh, it’s never been that cold!” ….so that transition into senility and no filters may be a lot smoother than I thought.

P.S.- To my daughter who was offended by my “Wrap Star” blog…it’s nice to know I can croak and the family traditions will be safe in your hands.  I still feel I can show you a thing or two though, so I hope you won’t mind if I stick around for awhile longer…only 50 years or so.