Ahh! Memories

"Sure, everything sounds bad if you remember it."

This quote comes from Homer after Marge recounts his experience at the previous year's Chili Cook-Off where Homer gets drunk and gets into the cotton candy machine. This is a great quote from season 8's Spanish titled episode. I don't speak Spanish so I can't really remember it. Rest assured, I will quote more from this episode later. It's one of my favorites.

The other day, my family and I were playing a game known as the List. For those of you who don't recognize this VH1's short lived series, many celebrities would gather and talk about what they thought was the best whatever. The best rock album, the best pop singer, etc. and voted on it to determine which really was the best. As much as we loved it, the show didn't last long, but since then, we have played it at parties and such. Well, we were bored one night (a common occurance in our house) and decided to play. We played twice: The best song-winner "Dream On" by Aerosmith and favorite movie-winner Armageddon.

Then we thought about another round: Favorite embarassing moments from our family. Soon a memory avalanche began: "Remember that time that Andrew plunged his own head?" "Or that time Andrew went to the bank to cash a check and asked for cash?" "Or when he was dancing in front of the whole stake with his buddies?" Oh, don't worry, it extended to everyone. "How about when Maddie couldn't see the Hoover Dam because she thought it was made of wood?" "Or the the time she said 'mazel tov' to the bishop?" "Or the time Dad slipped and used his embarassing nickname for Andrew's girlfriend right in front of her?" "How about the time we went to Huntsville to go on a winter snow ride for Mom but it turned out to be a cow pasture?" There were plenty more. I don't dare reveal any more.

There we sat, reveling in each other's misery and shame. Laughing it up at one or more people. I realized some very important things: First, I'm an idiot. Second, reliving the past is usually a blood sport with our family. Third, as much as these moments made me feel like a fool, they actually bound us closer as a family. I'm a firm believer that if you can't laugh at yourself, you can't laugh at anyone. And we experienced these as a family (I had plenty more that were with other people but they don't know about them), so we could laugh at each other without hard feelings. While I usually cringe whenever I hear my family say, "Remember the time..." I know that we're getting ready for some family bonding.

Everything does sound bad if you remember it, but at least there are some good things about it as well. And by the way, it was a clean plunger that I used, so no getting grossed out.