Tuesday, March 11, 2008

So I've Been Sick the Past Couple of Days

The great state of Texas had this great idea this year to give everyone flu shots for a the wrong flu strain. As a result, everyone in my office, my wife's office, and the greater North Texas area has this really nasty sickness thing that causes you to cough up green goo.

This, of course, reminds me of my Mother's high school.

The wild, in-jokey madness that is my family cannot really be explained, but I am going to try to do so at least once. Here's how it works - a person tries tells a story, another person makes a joke, and then the first continues to tell the original story with the other person (or people) expanding, embellishing the joke into something new strange and wonderful.

So here is a conversation that happened one time long ago between my mother, my brother, and myself.

"Mom, what was your high school mascot?"

"The crane."

"Your mascot was construction equipment?"

"No, the town is named 'Crane' so our mascot was a Golden Crane."

"Why not a Whooping Crane?"

"Yeah, that way when you had football games you could go, 'Whoop! Whoop! Whoop! Whoop!"

"No, it was the Golden Crane."

"What about the Whoopin' Cough?"

"YEAH! Your mascot was the Whoopin' Cough! And your team cheer was *hurrck hurrk huurk*"

"No, our mascot was the Golden Crane!"

"Yeah, and there was this big bucket and at halftime, all the people in the stands hocked into it!"

"And they would go *hurrck hurrck hurrck* Go whoopin' cough! *hurrck hurrck hurrck*"

"IT WAS NOT LIKE THAT AT ALL!"

"And at the end of the game, they dumped the bucket on the other team."

"Yeah! So even if the other team won, the they still got the whoopin' cough and died."

"Your high school was so awesome, Mom."

So now that I am coughing up stuff, I like to think I'm rooting for my Mom's home team.

Go Crane Whoopin' Coughs! *hurrck hurrck hurrck*

8 comments:

Nate said...

Wow, do family get togethers involve alcohol before or after these conversations happen?

NoRegrets said...

Oh, that sounds like so much fun...

M. Robert Turnage said...

G, for the most part, the people in my family are teetotalers. We are just, I believe the Southern term is, "a little eccentric".

Cyber D said...

you come from an eccentric family, Roberto? Nooooooo... not you! I don't believe it. You're just so... straight laced, middle of the road, republican, vanilla.

alex said...

That's what your coughs sound like? That spelling makes me think of my cat hacking up a fur ball.

M. Robert Turnage said...

Sadly, yes. The furball analogy is very appropriate. The past two weeks my coughs have been back of the throat/top of the lungs/big piles of nastiness.

And Cyber, your vanilla remark reminded me of a story. Some day, I will tell about how I earned the name "Chocolate Boy" in a predominantly African-American South Dallas business.

Tera said...

I almost fell off my chair! That was funny, lol! I had a good visual too, so now...I'm almost ill.

dmarks said...

I got that kind of flu shot in Michigan too. But it has worked so far.