A Question for Solomon.... or Os

I certainly don't know what to think anymore.

Once upon a time, LushlyMe sat in the back row, like Os. She had her own trombone that she got from a friend who had given it up... her instrument was old. The friend's family sold it to her family for a paltry sum... even by 1970's standards. It was old. The wrong color (rose brass), had an etched pattern on it that was like no other trombone that she had seen, kind of like this one, pictured... and it had a strange looking case. It was a rectangular cube... no indication of a bell and had a woven leather handle. Lushlyme thought this sucked, as it bit into the tender flesh of her hand. But such was life. It was hers.

Until her new husband, the Porn King, loaned her instrument to his former college room mate. Johnny was auditioning for Second City and though other, closer friends also played the trombone, those friends were using theirs at the time.

Can you guess what happened? Lushlyme's instrument was never returned. And though she has begged and pleaded that her PK implore his friend for its return.. those pleas have fallen on deaf ears. She even tracked the boy down and asked for the return of the trombone... and while the boy claimed that he would check at his parents house for the item, he never called back and never has been in town long enough for Lushlyme to track down again.

Now sadly at Christmas my father at the end of Christmas dinner, while discussing PK's Christmas gift from me, a Les Paul guitar, mentioned that we could now start a band... One daughter plays the guitar and the saxophone, another, the violin and clarinet, PK, the accordian and now the guitar and me? Well I could play my trombone. When I pointed out the impossibility of that, given the loss of my trombone was when the fun started.

See, PK doesn't want me to talk about my loss. He doesn't want me to talk about how, when or where. He wants me to "Get Over It". Now, I could. If he tried to get my trombone back and his friend Johnny said, "Dude, I am so sorry it got crushed, stolen, lost or hocked" I would have my closure. But I don't get that. I get, "Get over it" Which by the way is NOT in my nature.

So what happened? I wish I could say that I was drunk and things got out of hand... but I wasn't. And an argument broke out. The kind where everyone in my family argues at me to not upset the PK as he is the founder of our feast (to use a Dickensian term) and that just pissed me off more.

The fact that I got no support from my parents made me more upset. More than I can possibly describe. And as I got more upset and my language became more raw, my father-in-law reminded me of how and why I should mind my "Ps and Qs". In that tone of voice he uses to talk to idiots... or his own wife.

Well, I just exploded.

Not being a child, I pointed out that my use of language was none of his business. What did this get me? Well of course, The Porn King rushed to his father's defense. No one! NO ONE, even me, is allowed to speak THAT way to his father.

My older daughter can call me a whore with impunity but me telling his father to mind his own business is considered out of bounds in our family.

Charming, eh?

So near as I can tell here is the score card for the holiday:

No trombone.
No respect.
No loyalty.

Can someone describe to me why other than sheer stubbornness or masochism I am still here?