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What started as me deciding to rant about a few anxieties to some friends today somehow ended up inspiring a short story. Here it is:

Ever been the black sheep of your family? I'm my family's. Actually, my entire immediate family is considered a giant black sheep. At least to my dad's side.

You see, I've been the black sheep my entire life. It stands to reasons, too. I'm a liberal, Catholic/part-time Buddhist, environmentalist, pro-gay marriage, anime fan. Same as my mom (minus the anime most of the time). My dad's side of the family is a Bible-thumping, slightly racist, definately homo-phobic, republican line of accountants. Clearly I would never really fit in.

Normally this isn't a problem in the slightest. They invite me out of politeness to family gatherings then do the passive-agressive s**t they're known for (forgetting my name, birthday, the fact that I'm there, buying me the cheapest, crappiest, most thoughtless gifts while they give the "good" grandchildren iPods and cars. Don't think I haven't noticed) while I sit there and nod politely and say "Oh, that's fine. I wasn't hungry anyway. What a lovely... uh... thing to buy someone!"

All of this in the name of getting some money for college.

But today... I screwed up this lovely "relationship". I'll be lucky if I'm not completely disowned.

For I was invited to see the newest member of dad's side.

But the thing of it is, when I was buying a baby gift, I could've sworn the baby was a little boy named Bailey. So I bought accordingly, and didn't notice until I got to the damn thing that Bailey was a girl named Penelope.

I kept trying to get out early with my gift, but this happened to be the one time that they noticed my presence. No sneaking out undetected and writing an apology later.

So I had to stay and make idle chit-chat. ("How're you? I'm... spastic and twitchy. You?" wink , and play it cool when it came time for "Mommy" to open the baby gifts and hope that when she found mine, she wouldn't recognize me (or my name) and wonder aloud "Who the hell would do such a horrible thing to my baby?!" and start sobbing. Then I could win some points by shouting "Yeah! b***h! How could she? I'm certainly glad I'm me and not her and bought a good, chrisianity-oriented baby gift which I will go fetch from my car... and not her!" and then left for my car and sped off and been done with this.

Unfortunately, it didn't quite play out like this.

Of course, she shouted the afformentioned "WHO DID THIS TO MY BABY? IS THIS SOME KIND OF SICK JOKE?"

It was me who didn't play her part in this little farce. I shouted back "YEAH? WELL MAYBE YOU SHOULD LET THE LITTLE s**t GENDER IDENTIFY HERSELF!!!"

"Just... get out," she grumbled. "AND TAKE YOUR TASTELESS GIFT WITH YOU!" I was then accosted by her husband and literally thrown out.

I didn't quite know what to say, so I slunk back to my car. Once there, the words came to me: "OH, MY GIFT'S NOT GOOD ENOUGH FOR YOU TO RETURN FOR THE MONEY YOURSELF, EH? Oh, ******** it, I'll sell it for double my money on eBay."

Screw being lucky if all they do is disown me. I'll be lucky if they let me live.

Either way, they're soooo not giving me any money for college now.