Sister Assassins: Now For Hire.

A recent electronically-mediated conversation between my sister and I went as follows:
Her: "If a girl falls in the woods and there's no one to hear her, can I leave her there?"
Me: "May I suggest, as Kurt Cobain did, and Lead Belly before himm 'In the pines, In the pines, Where no one will ever find the bitch'. I paraphrase, lightly."
Her: "Ain't no feelin' like the just buried a bitch feelin'!"
Me: "One of my favorite family activities! Oh, now I'm homesick!"

From this little exchange spawned a conversation of memories and realizations. We are two daughters of a man who punches teenage department store workers, breaks people's glasses, spray paints co-workers in the eyes, punches other co-workers, and still has a job and has shockingly only been arrested once. (The charge was from his late teens for assault and battery on a police officer! Though, it's not that fun of a story: he and his friends threw snowballs at the 5-0.)

I recalled the infrequent times that Dad would come home and excitingly announce that it was family vacation time. We would pack into whatever second, third, or fourth hand jalopy was currently registered to our mom and drive a few hours to the water slides in Wild Wood. Sometimes we would take little impromptu day trips to other exotic places, like the Cow-town flea market and live-stock auction- whatever, the point is not how Poppa knew how to spoil his girls- the point is that we realized way later that these surprise "days off" were really days in which Dad had been suspended from work.

Then there was the time when I was about 11 or 12 and my dad came to pick me up from work (yes, I had a job that young) and I silently slid into the cab of his rusted F150 and kept as close to the passenger side door as possible. My whole body was rigid and forward while my head was turned at a perfect 90 degrees to the left and my jaw gaping open. He had shaved his beard and moustache for the first time ever. I mean, as far as I could tell he had always had them. Even in pictures from his adolescence and my early childhood. It was the first time I had ever seen my father's top lip.

"Stop looking at me," was the only thing spoken on the ride home. It was arguably one of the most awkward and uncomfortable 40 minutes of my young life.

Again, latent clairvoyance revealed that it was paranoia that had elicited the shaving. Apparently- and I don't know the exact details, though I'm willing to put money on it being something violence or drug related- my dad got into a bit of trouble and needed to quickly change his appearance.

There were handfuls of other situations that seemed odd at the time but undeserving of question or comment and my sister and I just went on our merry little ways playing in the backyard and being quiet when our Dad's friends smoked their "pine needle" cigarettes or came to cart his rifles and shotguns off for a week or two at a time. But growing up into the street and city savvy ladies we are today we've pieced together the truth about our family, our heritage, and our legacy: WE ARE NATURAL BORN ASSASSINS.

Hello?!? Duh! It's so logical and plain-to-see. My little sister is an unassuming tough cookie who'll headbutt you into unconsciousness for damn near no reason at all. (Unfortunately I know this from first hand experience.) And even though I tend to get hot-headed and mouthy I can keep my self composed enough to elegantly handle any size & style of rifle and obliterate my target in one shot. (Dusts shoulders off.)

Thus a new chapter in the family tradition of short-fuses and outrageous-ness has been started. Where the fuck is my cross bow?