The glorious internets have afforded me the opportunity to trace the Sparkles Plenty ancestry. Or, more correctly, they have afforded my father the opportunity to do so, because I'm far too lazy to do things like "research" or "look up crap online."
I still don't know much about my mother's side of the family, except for the fact that some dude, in a spectacular example of Darwinism, died while peeing on an electric generator. Mother Sparkles' family roots remain shrouded in mystery, since very few things were written about the hardscrabble existence of Midwestern farmers, unless of course you're talking about that poor bastard who met his maker by taking a whiz while standing beside an electric substation. On the other hand, my father's family is a well-documented bunch, chock full of prominent businessmen, war heroes, patriots, and... a witch.
My great-to-the-eighth-power grandmother was Susannah Martin, a woman condemned of witchcraft during the Salem witch trials but whose only apparent transgression was that she was a crotchety, sarcastic old skeezer. All I can say is that I hope the criteria for witchcraft conviction are much more forgiving in forty years time, because I'm careening down that crotchety skeezer highway at breakneck speed, and dangling by my neck while townsfolk pelt my lifeless body with overripe produce is not the way I choose to be remembered.
In the event a group discussion turns to ancestry, I'll parade around the lines "Thirteen of my forefathers fought in the American Revolution!" or "My great blah blah great grandparents came over on The Mayflower!" or "One of my relatives was the Secretary of the First Continental Congress and signed The Declaration of Independence!" These statements are met with blank stares, the occasional yawn, and a polite smattering of "That's interesting," "How nice!" or similar innocuous acknowledgements. But as soon as I bring up Susannah the witch, they'll perk right the hell up, eyes bright, and far-too-enthusiastically proclaim, "Oh, I can believe that!" Lively conversations will follow, almost always including something about family resemblances, inherited traits, and nuts not falling far from trees.
Bitches. As soon as my cauldron comes out of the dishwasher, I'm totally putting a hex on their asses.
I still don't know much about my mother's side of the family, except for the fact that some dude, in a spectacular example of Darwinism, died while peeing on an electric generator. Mother Sparkles' family roots remain shrouded in mystery, since very few things were written about the hardscrabble existence of Midwestern farmers, unless of course you're talking about that poor bastard who met his maker by taking a whiz while standing beside an electric substation. On the other hand, my father's family is a well-documented bunch, chock full of prominent businessmen, war heroes, patriots, and... a witch.
My great-to-the-eighth-power grandmother was Susannah Martin, a woman condemned of witchcraft during the Salem witch trials but whose only apparent transgression was that she was a crotchety, sarcastic old skeezer. All I can say is that I hope the criteria for witchcraft conviction are much more forgiving in forty years time, because I'm careening down that crotchety skeezer highway at breakneck speed, and dangling by my neck while townsfolk pelt my lifeless body with overripe produce is not the way I choose to be remembered.
In the event a group discussion turns to ancestry, I'll parade around the lines "Thirteen of my forefathers fought in the American Revolution!" or "My great blah blah great grandparents came over on The Mayflower!" or "One of my relatives was the Secretary of the First Continental Congress and signed The Declaration of Independence!" These statements are met with blank stares, the occasional yawn, and a polite smattering of "That's interesting," "How nice!" or similar innocuous acknowledgements. But as soon as I bring up Susannah the witch, they'll perk right the hell up, eyes bright, and far-too-enthusiastically proclaim, "Oh, I can believe that!" Lively conversations will follow, almost always including something about family resemblances, inherited traits, and nuts not falling far from trees.
Bitches. As soon as my cauldron comes out of the dishwasher, I'm totally putting a hex on their asses.
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