New on Fox. . .When Bitches Attack!

So, I've been sort of teasing a bit about my run-ins with the future in-laws. But I was really hesitant to get hate mail from people who don't understand the depths of the madness. So for an update check my three-part post in August titled "Weekend O'Woes" (parts I-III) to catch up on the whole Ernest and Lisa (not their real names) back story. Ernest is Ian's brother, he's engaged to Lisa, she's a bitch. There, you're caught up.

So, actually a couple of things have happened since then that I'd like to blog off my chest. This will be a two-part post, beginning with the weekend of October 2nd. The weekend that shall life in infamy, for reasons which will soon become apparent.

If you'll recall, Ian and I shipped out to L.A. for a two-day trip in order to attend an engagement party for Ernest and Lisa back in August. This trip was very expensive, quite an inconvenience, and she was rude and mean to me the entire time. It was kind of weird, because who has an engagement party when they haven't even set a wedding date?!

I should review for you all that Ernest and Lisa have a dog, one which she carries everywhere with her--the store, the salon, the car, the park, the pool. And she never uses a leash. And she got a friend of theirs, a doctor, to write a fake note for her saying that, for psychological reasons, she needs to have this dog with her at all times. So when they fly, she brings the dog and it sits on her lap on the plane--it doesn't have to go in the compartment below. Now, this bothers me on so many levels but here are the main three:

1. Writing a fake note for a reason like this is really shitty. 2. The L.A. sense of entitlement and arrogance in thinking she should get to do this when NO ONE else on the planet gets to is also shitty. 3. It's a dog, not a person, and no matter how much you treat a dog like a person it'll still behave like a dog, and having a solid sense of the appropriateness of pets is a good thing. And I'll add 4. I am allergic to cats so if I flew on a plane and someone in the seat next to me had a cat on their lap I would flip my SHIT. . .there is no way that it's fair to other passengers to fly with your pet. This is just backstory so you understand what happens later.

So, imagine my surprise when I discover they are having another engagement party, at a friends house in Kansas City, and they still haven't set a date. Without getting into gory details, this party included a fight between Lisa and Ian's sisters, a non-speaking match between Lisa and Ian's mom, and a fight between Ian and Ernest. Good times were, as they say, had by all.

To give you an example of this woman's depth of character, the fights were mostly about the fact that Lisa did not say one word to Ian and Ernest's mom at the party. When their mom left, Ian's two sisters confronted Lisa and told her it would have been nice if she had said hello and thanked her for coming. Lisa replied with "It's MY party so it was HER responsibility to come and say 'hi' to me and thank ME for the party."

This is the type of attitude typically forthcoming from Lisa. She also brought out these pictures from their party in L.A., which didn't go over very well with Ian's family because the pictures looked like they were from a college party (binge drinking and sexy dancing) and paraded them around the crowd trying to impress everyone with their Beverly Hills engagement party. No one was impressed, since her friends looked like drunken sluts in every picture. ANYWAY. . .Lisa asked me at this party in Kansas City, in front of a large crowd of people, when Ian and I would be married. I replied with our wedding date (in May) and she proceeded to count out the months on her fingers. Then she looks quizzically at me and says "eights months from now? Why did you need to set the wedding out that far? Are you guys waiting for some reason?" REAL innocent, like she doesn't mean anything by it, but you can tell she does.

Then she and Ernest proceed to the toasts. We all think Ernest will do some sort of romantic toast, or maybe thank his family. So here's his toast.

"Once there was this moth. It saw this beautiful light and was attracted to it. He flew toward it, and noticed it was getting hot. But he just couldn't resist, so he flew right to it and was consumed in the flame."

End of toast. Everyone was like, "WTF?!!!" Is that it? THAT was your toast?

So, that was the party. The day after the party Ian and I drove to Arkansas and back for my cousin's wedding. Although we had RSVP'd for the wedding months in advance, Ernest was angry with Ian (thus their fight at the party) that we couldn't be in town with them that day, because he had called a special "family meeting." At this meeting, he said he wanted to share some things his therapist had said, and that he wanted to make everyone accept that he was "the leader of the family." o. . .k. . . . . So we race back from Arkansas to make the meeting on time. We pull up to Ian's sisters house 20 minutes late. No one is there. We go in the front door and say "where is everyone?! What happened?" Ian's sister says "didn't you hear? [Ernest and Lisa's dog] is dead."

OK, now before I get flaming hate mail about how I don't love dogs let me clarify a couple of quick things. I love dogs. I had to put my beloved, 11-year old border collie Harriet to sleep just last winter. Every time I walk in the door I think I'll hear her collar jangling to greet me. I know what it means to lose a pet. In addition, this dog was so very sweet, and you can't blame dogs for their owners' silliness. Their dog would be alive enjoying a very happy doggy life if Lisa wasn't such a ridiculous bitch.

The story is, that while Ernest and Lisa were staying at the Hilton Gardens on College Boulevard (a large, four-lane, divided street in Overland Park, KS) she let their dog out to use the bathroom. Without a leash. She let her dog trot across all four lanes of traffic to use the bathroom on the grassy side opposite. She then called the dog back to her. The dog then was blindsided by one of Overland Park's ubiquitous SUV's, its back was broken and mercifully it died almost instantly.

I ask you, gentle readers, was it the dog's fault it went to answer the call of nature? I think not. Was it the poor suburban mom, driving her SUV in the dark, unable to see a black animal without a leash or owner, running quickly into the street. We know not. Or was it the god-bunny bunny-bunnying dumb-bunny owner, who allowed this to happen?

I think we all know the answer to who was REALLY responsible for the death of this poor creature. Through her own ridiculous lack of common sense, any sort of idea of an appropriate manner in which humans are in relationship with their pets, and her selfish desire to be "special" and have special priviledges for herself when it came to her dog, Lisa killed her beloved pet.

This shit makes me MAD. HULK ANGRY!!!!!!!!!!

So, if you were traveling out of town and your dog died, what would you do? You'd probably go to an all-night emergency vet clinic and make arrangements for burial or cremation, right? Lisa, adamant that was unacceptable, first tried to get Ian's mom to bury the poor creature in her backyard. Ian's mom buried a dog once in her backyard and it was immediately unearthed and gnawed upon by other dogs, so she said no. She even offered to pay for cremation and an urn. Ernest and Lisa, however, decided to impose upon their friends. The ones that threw them the party, with the lovely house in Prairie Village and a baby due in 4 weeks. They went out there at 11 p.m. on a Sunday night, dug a hole in their backyard and buried their dog there.

(thanks for the party, guys, can I bury my dead dog in your yard?)

Thus ends the first installment. Next time, I'll let you know what happened in Las Vegas.