Meet My Fucking Family You Dicks

As I’ve said many times over, I grew up in a really small town in upstate New York. Lots of Jesus freaks, lots of meathead high school heroes, lots of inbred children eating cigarette butts—really deep. I made my escape to London five years ago, but every Christmas I journey back to hicksville to spend some quality time with my radical Christian parents. The following is an introduction to a bunch of people who are (allegedly) related to me, as well as some insight as to what it’s like to grow up in a place where cows cause traffic jams and people think ‘evolution’ is a movie starring David Duchovny.

This is a photo of my mother saying the Rosary and wearing a sweatsuit; two of her all-time favorite things to do! When she’s not praying for my salvation or playing her favorite computer game, Bible Jeopardy, my mother’s passion is reading celebrity magazines. Thus she’s an expert on everything from the birth of Christ to Brangelina’s sex life to Tobey Maguire’s casual drug dependency.

My mother also has a flair for interior design. She just loves decorating the house with cute little knickknacks, such as this not-at-all creepy sculpture of Santa Clause praying over a sparkly baby Jesus.

Or this weird deer head that my Dad shot back in the 80s (which he refuses to take down, despite the fact that it’s given me nightmares since I was about two).

Or this beautiful and uplifting piece of arts and crafts.

This is my gay vegan brother, Rob. He’s 19. His interests include smoking pot, meditating, thinking about the universe, and smoking pot. Rob’s not technically out as being gay yet, but he wears SUPER tight trousers and is always going on about how “immaculate” Julian Casablancas’ bone structure is, which is enough for me. Plus he’s never had a girlfriend, and his BFF Derek sleeps over practically every night despite the fact that Rob only has a single bed. When I asked Rob if Derek was his boyfriend, he responded, “I mean, he’s a boy and he’s my friend, and sometimes we pee together and stuff, but no, we’re not dating.” Sexy.

So obviously not into her.

The majority of my town is made up of apple orchards. There isn’t much to do around here, so in high school for fun my friends and I just got superwasted on cough syrup and passed out in fields.

Or sometimes we got high in the parking lot of this weird, chrome-covered diner that looks like a 70s version of the future.

These signs are everywhere.

This is my Dad. He doesn’t say much—he just sort of wanders around with a look of disdain on his face, shaking his head at stuff and telling my brother and I to turn the lights off and stop wasting electricity. When he’s not working at some boring computer company that I can’t remember the name of, my Dad spends his time being a member of this weird church cult called the Knights of Columbus. They do things like run the beer tent at church events and other top-secret Jesus stuff that my Dad’s not allowed to talk about.

These are my grandparents. They’re both about 90 and can’t hear or see. Or remember anything. Or, like, breathe without the help of machines. It’s pretty safe to say that when this photo was taken they had no clue what was going on. When I asked my grandpa what being old was like, he responded “LIKE BEING ON DRUGS.”

I think what my grandfather meant to say was, “It’s like being out of your mind drunk 24/7.” This is a picture of their shopping list.

No but for real… I shouldn’t be so hard on my parents. They did, like, make my whole body and stuff, so I guess I’m thankful for that. Plus my bro is really good at giving whole body massages (which according to my mother we are “too old” to do now, but whatever), so that’s a definite perk that comes with being home.

No matter how much they confuse the hell out of me at times, I still love them for the Jesus-crippled, weirdo hick freaks that they are.

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