TODAY I CELEBRATE MY INDEPENDENCE DAY

Like the sands of an hourglass...today my in-laws get the fuck outta Dodge.

This has been one of the most EXCRUTIATINGLY PAINFUL weeks in recent memory. Never before in the history of me actually having in-laws have they ALL decided to converge on my house on a daily basis for a week.

I told Susie last night she sooooooo owes me. She agreed and offered me a blowjob.

I politely declined and said I wanted something materialistic. Like a DVD or steak dinner or something.

She sighed and silently wished she had married a man with a normal sex drive who liked oral sex.

So yesterday...I left for work while all the inlaws were asleep.

At 9 a.m.

I come home for lunch at noon.

One nephew is awake.

And, of course, he's playing Play Station.

I make enough noise to wake up Walter Matthau and FINALLY my sister in law gets up.

"I HAVE TO TAKE THE KIDS TO GRANDMA'S TODAY," she shouts. "SUSIE AND I ARE HAVING LUNCH."

"Wonderful," I whisper, trying to impose on her the fact that she doesn't have to yell every single word she wants to convey. "Have a good time."

She rouses the kids up by singing lullabies to them at the decibel level of your average NASCAR race and they all stumble off to Grandma's sauna, unshowered with not a single tooth brushed.

I enjoy a hearty leftover rib dinner from July 4th, and go back to the office for about an hour when I realize that I'm just NOT into work today. So I turn around and come home.

To an empty house.

An empty QUIET house.

I take this glorious opportunity to nap on the couch, which is my favorite napping spot.

Ten minutes later, a knock at the door.

The Human Alarm System is back.

"AM I DISTURBING YOU," she asked.

I wanted to say "For the entire last week...yes ... you've been disturbing the shit outta me." But I just mumbled "No, I'm only taking a nap."

"I'm sorry," she said, moving past me hurriedly.

"It's okay," I confirmed. "I'll go nap in the bedroom."

Apparently, my sister-in-law only came home because she thought the house would be empty so she could....

she could...ummmmm....

...so she could get rid of her lunch in an extremely loud fashion.

Alright folks...in twelve years of marriage, I've never experienced the sounds of my loud sister-in-law taking a dump.

Holy shit. I thought her VOICE was loud.

She had sounds coming out of her that made me want to call an exorcist. I thought she was slaughtering a herd of cattle in there. At times, it sounded like she was shitting broken glass.

I put a pillow over my head and tried to rest, but couldn't, due to the walls shaking.

She was LITERALLY in there for 30 minutes, huffing, puffing and groaning.

THIRTY FREAKIN' MINUTES TO TAKE A DUMP.

People...I've got a pretty good feeling if you're reading this, at one time or another in your life, you've had to defecate.

BUT WHO THE HELL TAKES THIRTY MINUTES TO CRAP???

...The answer is...my loud-assed sister-in-law.

She finally opens the door. I'm down the hall in my bedroom.

...That's when I REALLY thought she had slaughtered a cow. I wanted to run out in the hallway and yell, "What crawled up your ass and died?? Mr. T.?!?!"

But before I could get to the door, she was out the door, started up her little mini-van and took her gassy self elsewhere, leaving me back in the house by my lonesome.

I slept for about an hour in a cloud of her shit.

I was awakened by the sounds of the doorbell being pushed erratically.

...They were back...all 14 of them.

It was Pizza Night at Uncle Bob's, because Uncle Bob makes "THE BEST PIZZA" according to everyone in attendance.

...Geez...maybe because these poor, penny-pinching bastards call grilled cheese sandwiches "pizza" in their little store-brand worlds.

I made EIGHT large pizzas over the course of three hours.

"Uncle Bob, I want cheese pizza."

"Uncle Bob, I want pepperoni pizza."

"Uncle Bob, I want a veggie pizza."

"Uncle Bob, I want an all meat pizza."

"Uncle Bob, I want a pizza with no tomato sauce."

"Uncle Bob, Can I hump your knee?"

"Uncle Bob, I want pineapple on my pizza."

"Uncle Bob, I want sausage on my pizza in the shape of a smiley face."

"Uncle Bob, I want pizza with no crust."

...Like I'm fucking Domino's over here...

When all was said and done, I ate two slices. Mainly because that was all that was left.

The rest of the night was spent fighting over which Play Station game to play, whose turn it was to play Play Station, why so-and-so always gets to play Play Station and why the other so-and-so NEVER gets to play, which movie they can watch, why the ten-year-olds can't watch "Terminator 2", and who didn't flush the toilet all the way.

My guess for the toilet was my sis-in-law. Something told me we'd be flushing for weeks before we got all of her bowel movement completely out of this house.

At midnight, I left the kids crowded around this computer, watching "The Blair Witch Project" and wearily stumbled off towards the bedroom.

I passed my sister in law in the hallway.

"THANKS FOR THE WONDERFUL DINNER," she yelled in my face.

I had had enough.

"YOU'RE WELCOME," I yelled back. "IF YOU HAVE TO SHIT IT BACK OUT, PLEASE GO OUT BACK BY THE BIG PINE TREE AT THE BACK OF THE YARD AND BURY IT LIKE A DOG."

She didn't see the humor in me yelling or pointing out that her bowel movements were obviously the work of the devil.

So today...BY NOON I HAVE BEEN PROMISED, this house will be free of gassy and loud sister-in-laws, boisterous, bickering mother and brother-in-laws, hyperactive and destructive nephews and one niece who has been surprisingly good throughout the week and barely making a peep.

Life will be back to normal.

...And this diary will be back to being about nothing in general.