Greetings, Cake-Eater Nation! Robbo the Llama Butcher here.

Kathy and I long ago traded sets of keys to each other's blogs and every now and again one of us will come across in order to get something off our chests which, for whatever reason, might not be politic to post on our own site. With Kathy's kind indulgence, I'm going to do that right now.

My in-laws are soooooooooo crazy.

Chorus: How crazy are they?

I'll tell you. Here's what I discovered as they came through this weekend on their semi-annual migration from Floridah to New England:

First, the M-I-L has been fiddling with various fad diets for years and years now. Her latest trick, apparently, is to convince herself that she is allergic to virtually every kind of food and drink under the sun (including - yes, really - certain types of water), and to avoid consuming them.

In fact, the woman is no more allergic to most foods than I am and her new-found condition is the product of nothing but auto-suggestion. The punch line is that she has lost weight. The pragmatist in me simply shrugs and says, "Hey, if it works." The philosopher in me pulls out great hanks of my own hair in incredulous frustration.

Second, the F-I-L has never met a conspiracy theory he doesn't immediately swallow hook, line and sinker. JFK. Mary Magdalene. The Tri-Lateral Commission. The Japanese. The Chinese. The Arabs. The Mob. The CIA. Why he's not a Scientologist, I really can't say. The only time he and I have ever had anything approaching a real fight was the time over adult beverages when I assured him with all my heart that when Alan Greenspan looked at himself in the bathroom mirror in the morning, his first thought was not how he was going to screw the F-I-L that day.

The new one is that the government is deliberately trashing the economy and destroying the middle class. That way, you see, more and more people will have no choice but to enlist in the army, which is what the Military-Industrial Complex wants.

As Howard Dean might say, "Yeeeeeeeeeeeeeeaarrrrrgggghhhh!!!!"

Ah, that feels better!

Mind you, I don't dislike the In-laws. They are awfully decent people and they've been very good to us over the years. But they are crazy, and these manifestations of that craziness can be a bit trying some times. Hence the need to vent.

Thank you for your indulgence.

Posted by: Robert at 07:37 AM | Comments (7) | Add Comment
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