So my mother is the oldest child of three brothers, Uncle James, Uncle Mike and Uncle Dan. They grew up in the ghetto part of town (or as ghetto as you can get in Salt Lake City). All were raised Mormon.
To put into perspective of how bad this side of my family is, my mom is the only one with a college degree and I'm the third grandchild to complete highschool despite being the third youngest grandkid.
Uncle James is a recently "reborn" Mormon. He went on a mission and as you can imagine had a terrible experience. Why he's recently religious again no one knows but he'll force it into conversation. When asking how he's been he'll go into a mini monologue about how he's living each day proving himself as a man of faith and thanking the lord for each sunrise. He married this hambeast of a woman named Patti and had two girls Mia and Crystal. Both Mia and Crystal are party girls and both got knocked up before 16. Mia HAS actually married the father of one of her kids. Crystal has two kids each with different parents, one of whom is in prison and is now pregnant with a third from another man she is not in a relationship with. Patti, Mia and Crystal are downright evil. They actively scheme against my grandfather and Uncle James. All of them have shoplifted, Patti goes around claiming whatever new illness suits her and declares herself a cancer survivor when she's never had it. Mia has stolen my grandparent's credit cards on more than one occasion and both her and Crystal also caused a shitstorm when they called the police saying my grandpa raped them throughout their lives. The cesspool of a trailer ALL of them, Uncle James, Mia's husband and all their kids live in is actually in my grandfather's name. As is their car. None of them have any long term goals or jobs instead wanting quick rich ideas. I'm currently a film student and Crystal is always harping on me to give her kids roles in projects I do. They're so bad they'll even turn on each other. Recently Crystal and Patti took custody of one of Mia's girls in order to get possession of the car they have. Because my mother is a lawyer, Mia came crying to her for advice.
Now my Grandmother passed on in October and my grandfather lives not by himself but with my Uncle Mike and Dan. My Uncle Dan actually has a legit reason. He married an extremely religious woman and had four kids with her. He used to work for the railroad and injured his back on the job which required surgery. He didn't get as much money from his employers as he thought and became unable to work and reliant on pain medication. At some point he attempted suicide and my aunt being the insane Mormon she divorced him for such an act of sin and turned three of her kids against him. The other kid came out gay and you can imagine how much that riled up my aunt. He's since disconnected from our family (with good reason) and moved to California with his partner. My Uncle Dan is actually the only other person besides my mother with an actual brain. Although he's unemployed he makes his own payment on his car and is currently looking for a job even though he's recently been diagnosed with colon cancer. He's actually a level headed person and is usually the person to report all the family shenanigans happening.
This leaves Uncle Mike who currently wants my head on a spike for calling out his bullshit. This is a man, in his early fifties still living with his father who pays for his car, his food and allows his girlfriend to ALSO live with them. His story, he is STILL married to wife but are separated. He has three sons Mike Jr. who I've never met, Steve a womanizer with two kids from two mothers whom he cheated on and Devin a juggalo with his own knocked up girlfriend. Now I can go on and on about Steve and Devin but my Uncle Mike is basically the lolcow of the family. He's your typical blue collared, tea party, conspiracist man who believes he's above the law. Multiple times he's been employed and loses them from being drunk on the job to testing positive on cannabis. Of course this is never his fault but Obama's to which he will drunkenly rant about all day. Not to mention his views on immigration. Let me touch on his addiction to alcohol. Back while planning my grandmother's funeral my mother told him to not bother showing up if he had a drop of alcohol in him. Eventually his withdrawal was so bad he had to get a drink. Frankly I don't know how the man isn't dead.
His girlfriend is one of those facebook addicts posting literally everything on there. So much so that when my grandmother was hospitalized before her death I learned NOT from a family call but from her facebook. She works as a waitress which is their only income. When she isn't working she's on the computer from 7 in the morning to 2 at night. She has her own laptop which is guess what! Rent to own and if my Uncle Dan is right, hasn't made a single payment on. God knows how many noise complaints they've had along with my Uncle's DUI's and violent tendencies. Bless my grandfather for having such patience for all of this. My Uncle Dan and my mother have told him time and time again to kick Mike and his girlfriend out, stop payments on their car, stop paying for Uncle James trailer and car and live happy in retirement. Instead he's basically baby sitting 50 year old men, with greedy wives and all their children who are as bad as their parents.
Facebook is my only true way of keeping up with all of them and day in and out there's usually something happening that makes me question whether to laugh or facepalm. It's a non stop train wreck. Sadly once my grandfather passes on, it's going to erupt in chaos as two of my uncles and their family are completely dependent on him and my mother and Uncle Dan are going to have to step up and tell them goodbye. Until then though, I get a fairly frequent amount of amusement.
