Bad moon rising.

Ever feel like your luck is bound to change? Everyone goes through rough spots, just look at Paris Hilton. She was born into a rich family, lived 17 years and the only problems she ever had was when the fucking Dolce & Gabbana didn't have an outfit in a -3. Even then, her dad would probably just buy out the second mortgage on the designer's soul and have him make something special.

Some rough spots last longer than others. Pauly Shore can't make a movie anymore unless it centers around himself. Did you ever see Pauly Shore is Dead? I watched it once while I was high, and it was hilarious. The next day after school I started watching it again, and it was the worst thing I've ever seen. Aside from his guardian angel, who is supposed to be Sam Kinison, excusing himself because "Jimi Hendrix wants his Pokèmon cards back", there's nothing funny to be found.

I've always felt that if God existed (or, if he really held any sway over our lives), he would try to balance out every day with some good stuff and some bad stuff. It didn't take me too long to decide that he or she probably didn't exist or care. I tried to keep in high spirits, though. I decided maybe it went on a weekly basis and not a daily, but discovered that couldn't be after Mrs. Allen took away my own Pokèmon cards in 5th grade, I got in trouble for throwing up in the bathroom toilet, and allegedly had flipped off an old lady from the bus window.

Now, despite being an atheist, I find that the only way to save myself from moping around every day is to still hold on to the hope that sometimes good things happen to good (or in my case, halfway decent) people. That could have happened today. It's a ridiculous story, and is probably not very interesting at all to anyone but myself, but I'll tell it anyhow. I got up early today (about 12:20) to get dressed for a family reunion. I haven't been to one since I was nine or ten. I'm twenty now.

If you want to skip the potentially boring story, just scroll down until you see another dashed line.

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-Spoiler alert: Chris takes a 10 question test that he knows none of the answers to and gets them all correct.-

I show up in a beard, black shirt and baggy pants on this most humid of summer days. Not only does no one recognize me (even though I showed up with my mother and sister, "who's that fat kid with Yvonne and her daughter?" Maybe it's her son.), but they were also put off by the fact that I presented myself that made it feel like there was a breeze of 140 degrees fahrenheit. On the lakefront.

Anyway, after eating some awesome pork teriyaki sticks and a bunch of stuff that was so sweet it burned my throat, I was going to take off. Buuut, since I'm the only one in my family that doesn't gamble, I was the one picked to draw the winning 50/50 ticket. Yeah. That's how lame my family is. We have a raffle at our family reunion. Nothing says "small town" like bringing your football halftime moneymaker to a family gathering. I just picked one off the top, I didn't care too much. Either way, there were going to be 60 people out for blood because I didn't pick their ticket.

With that done, I decided to leave. But my uncle Al (who used to be a rollerskating clown named Albo) was passing out what looked like a survey, so I decided to take one. After all, I thought someone should mention that at next year's reunion we should make a list so 16 people don't show up with baked beans as their dish to pass. He looks at me and says "Do you think you can get through this?" It turned out to be a quiz. Not one to embarrass myself accidentally, I said "You know I'm good for it," and went to sit down with my pink pencil.

1. Which of these family members are from Nevada?
A. Marsha and Demere
B. Marsha and Brandon
C. Lucky and Dwanya
D. Marsha and Dwanya

...I don't know who these people are. I've never even spoken to anyone at a reunion, let alone taken a roll call. Putting my brain into overdrive, I remembered that my aunt Marsha is sitting right next to me. I know she's the mother of all the people listed. But that's not too much help. I mark B, because Brandon seemed to show up the last time I had seen her.

The questions only got harder. It started talking about names I'd never heard, "when were these people married? 1904, 1908 or 1906?" as if any of us were alive back then. My mother and aunt Brat are like, obsessive over family trees. Anyone other than them couldn't get these answers right.

When we turned them all in, they passed them out to different people. We check each others answers, how middle school of us. When the tally was finished, I knew I had missed at least the third question. The last two, which my mother had told me she guessed on completely, I got right. My uncle read off that there were two people with perfect scores, so I knew I was out. The winners were Jaleesa Baier, my cousin, and Chris Grose, me. Wait, rewind that. I won? I knew I had that question wrong. I got my sheet back, because they wanted to do a tie breaker. I saw question three, "Where were Bo Patton and Vada Somethingorother married?", I circled B, the answer was A. The person who corrected mine put a line through A, for some reason, and gave me ten points. I wasn't complaining. At first.

Then I found out that the tie breaker questions were not multiple choice. Seriously? You can't expect me to get any of these three right. One asked about a defunct town that some chick died in. What fucking town just disappears? Anyway, instead of dragging this out any longer I'll just tell you that I expected to only get points for one of the answers, and that's because I was a smart ass and put the answer as Mr. and Mrs. Patton. Which was wrong anyway, since they weren't married. Question 2, how many kids did so and so have? I put 0. Which was too easy, so I changed it to three. Three questions, three kids. Seemed like an okay bet. And I got it right.

WOO! CHRIS GROSE IS THE WINNER! SHAKE-A SHAKE-A SHAKE-A.

Al: "Hey Bev, what does Chris get for winning?"
Brat: "I forgot to buy a prize."

*anime crash*

So before Jaleesa left with her new boyfriend (who looked like a total tool in his chrome-lined aviators, gelled curly hair, American Eagle shirt two sizes too small and pre-ripped and bleached shorts from Abercrombie that probably set him back 80 bucks. No joke, this kid was more of a tool than Maynard James Keenan), she finally looked at me and waved goodbye. [Backstory: This girl, I swear she used to have a crush on me when we were 4 or so. I guess rules like "you're in the same family" don't matter to kids that young, because I think I probably liked her tooDONTJUDGEME. She went to some parochial school in the renowned tourist trap of Charlevoix, the next town over, until 6th grade. During our first visit to the middle school, as 5th graders, Jaleesa was there and it was weird. I hadn't seen her in a year or two. I went up and tried talking to her, but she was kind of ignoring me. After the tour group disbanded, she came up and told me not to tell people we were related.] I waved to her, too. As she was walking away, I couldn't help myself. Louder than normal, "Sorry about, you know, stomping you into the ground on that quiz." She does that annoying hair-toss overtheshoulder look, "Oh, it's okay. I guessed on all of them too."

INSULTED. Who does she think she is? Telling me I guessed on all of the questions. I mean, I really did guess on all of them, but she doesn't know that.
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So the point. I've been really, really lucky today. In a life like mine, things are balanced when I'm having a shitty day. So now, if I had a really lucky day, that means the scale is trying to tip to the bright side of life. That's not allowed. What kind of horrific ordeal am I going to be subjected to now to restore balance to my scale?

Maybe I'll get into a car accident on my way to the psychologist tomorrow. So it goes.

Don't go 'round tonight, it's bound to take your life.

I have a meeting with a psychologist tomorrow, isn't that exciting? I'm getting a complete psychological profiling. It'll set me back $500-1000, from what I was told. And when I say me, I mean my dad. We're not rich like the Hiltons. We're not rich at all. If I tried to judge us, I'd say we fit into the middle lower class or something. My dad has less than $3,000 in the bank, I think, and he's got nothing nice to show for it. It all goes to bills. He's rarely ever used a credit card, so there's not really any debt there. My dad supports so many parts of our family, he's the only one with a full time job. He begs for overtime and holidays just so we can get by. Unfortunately, I've been advised that I need to be profiled. Maybe I'll go into detail about that another time. For now, I'll allow that morsel of curiosity to marinade in your brain stew. Maybe it'll make me seem attractive and mysterious.