Sometimes You’ve Got To Make Your Own Family
When you come of age and finally move away from your home and your family after a lifetime of nurturing and unconditional love, it can be very difficult; the need for familial warmth and understanding is sometimes overwhelming. What do you do when all the people you’re closest to are so very far away? Well, I gradually came to realize that I would have to make my own family.
But this is no easy task. Some people simply try to turn their friends or co-workers into their “family.” They say things like, “You’re the sister I never had,” or refer to each other as “bro,” or, if you’re me, everyone calls you “Big Poppa Jam Jam,” for some reason I have yet to figure out. But let me tell you in no uncertain terms that making your own family this way is a huge mistake. The sad fact of the matter is that all of your friends, neighbors, and coworkers are huge jerks.
So go down that road if you must, but don’t say Big Poppa Jam Jam didn’t warn.
A better method is to simply write down all the members of your family, list their primary attributes, and then go out and try to find people who share these attributes. Let’s say that in your family you have a slightly racist grandmother. Not super racist but, you know, she grew up in a different time. It will be difficult to find all of your grandmother’s traits in non-family member, so try to find an elderly woman who not only doesn’t trust Chinese people, but who either has a slightly bent nose, or falls asleep in weird locations. Don’t be too picky!
The pitfall in this tactic is that—let’s be honest—you are probably going to try and sleep with most, if not all, of these surrogate family members at one point or another. Psychologically, this could become trying.
At this point, you’re probably saying, “Hey, Chris, what about stealing a bunch of squirrel monkeys from the nearest zoo? Or putting clothes on some sacks of potatoes?” These questions are just plain stupid: Do you have any idea how much it costs to feed a wild pack of squirrel monkeys? They would eat your entire potato sack family by the end of the second week!
So what’s left? Well, I can tell you that holding a family of five hostage for two months doesn’t work. I really put everything I had into that relationship, but they just couldn’t seem to bridge the trust gap. Sure, they would say the right things and act the way I wanted them to, but as soon as we tried to put the machete down and move forward with our relationship, they would just attack and punch and yell at me.
Every. Single. Time. You know, I wonder if they are still in that basement, or if I just imagined the whole thing when I was trying to hallucinate a new family using ether.
After a number of pretty tough years, I started to think that I’d never find a family so far away from my real one. Then one day when I was huffing some real good ether, it hit me: I could literally make one by stitching together body parts and reanimating the bodies! It was so simple that I’m almost embarrassed I didn’t think of it before! I have the body parts, I have the know-how; the only thing stopping me is finding the time in my busy schedule to make it happen.
Just because I don’t have a family doesn’t mean I don’t have a social life.
