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cXnX XlazziX: A Typical Saturday in the Clemente Household (c. 1998)
9:03:00 AMPaulWe open up this week with a picture...
While we make endless joking references to our traumatic upbringing, we understand that many children our age grew up in similarly dysfunctional households. The odds are that if you're on this site, you know many unconnected facts and funny anecdotes relating to our childhood, and may have even met our parents, which lends an impartiality to these proceedings. Those who have encountered them for more than two minutes of small-talk should be able to attest to their emotionally crippling attempts at human interaction. "Now," you may ask yourself, "What happens when the two of them are left to each others' devices?" Below is a fight documented from sometime around 1997 or 1998. Unless otherwise indicated, the tick marks underneath any particular category apply to both "adults."
Ian: I'm sure since there's only one hatch mark underneath Outdated Dad Words, it will raise many questions as to what word was so striking, so memorable... Imagine this occurring, but not funny. This page intrigues me because of the illustration (one of my all-time favorites). Guess what CD we were listening to...
The fights in our household would last all day, not unlike a war with the sides periodically retreating from the front to regroup and gather a more effective arsenal. Once the FIGHT switch was flipped on, the point was no longer about correcting a perceived injustice, but rather about demoralizing and humiliating the enemy to the point of homicidal rage or suicidal despair. We weren't permitted in the proximity of these fights except to eat dinner together in the toxically tense atmosphere. So, while we were sequestered (or quarantined) for however long it took one of them to either leave or reach the point of absolute physical exhaustion, we amused ourselves.
Ian: Crymenes is still a mystery to us to this day. I'm not sure if the depiction here was styled after a specific person, but our father kneeling in praise is an accurate description. How else could one explain his constant invocations, "For Crymenes Sake!"
We divided the duties equally, agreeing on them before commencing the recording since we felt there were many unique facets to each combatant's approach, so while Paul documented the previous frame's information, Ian did so for the following aspects (at this point, we had to agree on a violation before officially marking it):
Ian: My marginal sketches aren't as interesting. I think it's important to note that the fight had been going on for a few hours already before we were bored and annoyed enough to conduct this masterpiece of mockery.
Ian: This page should have been filled (and a second one started) by the end of the day. Little did I know then that I'd inherit the same exact trait of choking on my own indignation so badly that I lose the ability to form words.
If the world worked like this, there would never be any need for a fight. Our dad's ideal world:
Ian: The dream house is perfect, a shapeless cave that requires no cleaning, knick-knackery or human contact. My only critique is that the cave isn't surrounded by a massive field of unkempt greenery. I'm assuming this would be located in a tropical climate so yardwork would be possible year-round...
But since the world isn't perfect, this is normally what would occur everday (all day on weekends, and after 5:07PM on weekdays)
Ian: Many people might see this as an exaggeration, so imagine this, only not fun. At all.
A lot of fights were needlessly initiated through unwarranted spying, as an artist's rendering illustrates below.
As the battle raged on (7.5 hours later, yes the timestamp says 12:05) and the downstairs was still a forbidden zone, we decided to team up and record valid and invalid points made. Anything irrelevant or needlessly spiteful was marked with an X and anything pertinent or constructive was marked with a /. The numbers were running tallies taken anytime we genuinely thought the fight had finished... lolz... so some of the numerical notations appear to inaccurately reflect the hash browns.
Ian: Did the fight end at 1AM or did we just pass out?
Leave it to our mother to successfully and astutely identify the source of all the troubles in our household. Although we didn't get a computer with a working internet connection (i.e. one worth wasting any time in front of) until 1999, all problems regarding negligence or outright disobedience were blamed, in a mocking (unintentionally humorous) overanunciated fashion, on the kom-PYOOT-ORR. Example sentence: "Of course you didn't hear me. Nothing else exists except THE COMPUTOR!"
And here was our prediction for the future... Breathtaking to see what the new millenium would hold.
0 Construxive Remarx