Oh, my goodness. They can be wonderful or they can make you want to scream: mine is no different. Being southern lends extra, interesting rules and regulations that add to the normal chaos of families everywhere.
Like rule #576...if the gulf is full of hurricane, all bets are off. We should evacuate, but we do not, because we have been throught this a million times. No one, mentions much that a few those "times" we ended up in a pirouge at midnight, with parents guiding the sides of the boat. Those parents were in chest deep water, in the eye of the storm...that happened directly after they had roped all 13 kids together and were preparing to cut a hole through the roof to put us out of the water and into the wind (my uncle secured the boat by some unknown fashion, and thank God, because it saved us).
Nor, do they mention the time a huge tree top off one of our hundred foot pine trees snapped off and came through the roof, pushing bursting pipes through the walls. It was never safe, we were just lucky. And after all these years and huge amounts of coastal erosion, it is really time to go.
Katrina helped the "fam" develop more unusual rules. Like, it really does not matter who is married to whom, when all is lost (as in 3 family homes) everyone lives with everyone in some poor saps home (last man standing is not always the winner)!
Also, we have an amendment that reads...it does not have to be an actual storm, we can adapt these rules to apply to a strong easterly wind that pushes water up into the bayou and rivers. If you live in a coastal area, you get to just pack your shit and go to someone else's house... All bets, privacy and sanity are off!
Stress from this phenomena is amazing, and sometimes I think it is only my nutty family. But, if you dare to chance a mention to people who you view as sane and reasonable, you will hear similar stories. Gustav and Ike have been the straws that has broken the back off the proverbial camel in my family dynamics.
More for later....plenty more!
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