Home for the Holidays

I know it has been a while since I posted anything but that is because in between the last post and this one there has been a lot going on in my life. For starters iniation into Gamma Alpha Upsilon took place. This was very intense and filled with all kinds of fun activities. Also finals were going on and the holiday breaks so i haven't had much time to write anything.

While home over the holidays I re-realized just how cutoff from the outside world my hometown (if you could even call it a town, it's more like a small housing development set in the middle of fucking nowhere) is. Since moving to T-town I have grown accustom to all the fine things that living in the city has to offer such as INTERNET and CELL-PHONE SERVICE. My parents do not even have internet at their house. You walk in and its like taking a step back in time about 400 years. They still heat with a wood stove and not one of the fancy ones that is a forced air system and is ventilated throughout the whole house but one of the old types that just radiates the heat. Now in case you have never been around a real old fashioned wood stove let me explain the details of having to care for the fire lest your three year old brother should freeze to death in the middle of the night because you let it go out.

First of all you must obtain wood from somewhere. Well in the country we can't just drive to the nearest Reasors and pay for 7 bundles and actually take 14 like everyone does. We must cut the wood ourselves. That's right we have to fell the trees and fucking cut and split them into logs ourselves. And if that wasn't bad enough no-one will ever do it in the spring and summer when its warm they always want to do it when its snowing and fucking -15 degrees outside. So once you get the wood cut and split then you must haul it. This usually entails loading into a truck by hand then unloading it by hand. This doesn't sound too bad but when it's -15 outside and you start to sweat then stop working for just a minute you can literally feel the the sweat beads freezing to you fucking head. After the unloading, then you must carry it into the house. Now my parents have a flight of about 20 stairs and they live on the second floor of our house. By the time you make two trips up and down the stairs with your arms loaded with fire wood your ready to just set the house on fire and say "There now that was much easier than having to carry all that wood up here by hand. Wasn't it?" But the problem is we don't even have insurance on our house(I don't know if my parents know about homeowners insurance or they are just trying to save up money so we can buy a hog next spring to fatten up and kill in the following fall, thus ensuring that we survive the winter).

Well now that we have acquired the wood we have to start the fire. This entails scrounging around in the cold dark night for dry wood to start the fire with because remember the other wood is wet from the snow? Finally after tearing down the east wall of the outhouse we found enough wood to start the fire. But wait we also need paper so we start looking around and the only paper we have is our newspaper/toilet paper. So a big debate comes up. Stay warm and have dirty asses or be cold and have clean asses. At this point you might ask "Couldn't you just go to town the next day and get some toilet paper?" Well see the problem with this theory is that by the time we got up and hitched the team of horses to the wagon and rode into town it would be about a weeks trip and we would all have dirty asses anyway. So we take a family vote and it is 14-13 in favor of using the paper for fire. The final vote came down to Pa and he smells anyway so he figured we'd just use it for fire. Well once we get it started then someone has to wake up every three hours and check it to make sure it hasn't gone out. Well I am one of the oldest of the 25 kids so guess what? That's right i have to wake up every three hours to check the god damn fire. Which is hard because remember my parents are still living in the 1600's and don't have electricity so no alarm clocks. I guess they think that I will just naturally wake up every 3 hours to check it. Well I do now because the one time I forgot and let it go out Pa made me get a peach tree switch then used it to give me 40 minus 1 lashes.

Thank God all that's over now and I am back to civilization. Only its a bit depressing because i got a telegram(yeah they still use the telegram method where my parents live) from them saying my uncle had died in a tragic buggy accident. Apparently his prize stud went crazy when he passed a mare in heat and the ensuing site was not pretty. The telegram read something like this. "Uncle Chris dead stop Stud tried to fuck mare stop closed casket stop" I'm not looking forward to going back to BFE Missouri because i was just getting used to being back in T-town. Oh well shit happens, Uncles die in tragic buggy/horse sex accidents and life goes on.