Heather Christena Schmidt

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It isn’t often that you find a sequel that can be called good. Usually they suck – the plot line has gotten old; the characters look way too aged if years have gone by; and, more than anything, some of the flare from the original just isn’t there. Don’t get me wrong – there are a lot of sequels that are just as good (if not better) than their originals. Back to the Future 2 and Die Hard 2 are ones I can think of off the top of my head.

But then there are sequels in real life. Those are rarely ever good. A reoccurring dream replays itself over and over again during the night – usually in the format of a nightmare. Some banking problem never seems to get resolved. And then there is the worst: some drama-ridden hillbilly from your past resurfaces to spew their hillbilly shit all over the place again.

Those of you that have been around for a while remember the saga of my Trailer Trash Mom a few months ago. For those of you that weren’t, here it is in a nutshell: my mother (I call her my Trailer Trash Mom) hasn’t ever been eligible for Mother of the Year, really, but has gotten particularly use-y and trash-y since she married a hillbilly from New Mexico exactly one year ago last Friday. Around Mother’s Day, she volunteered me to cook a big family dinner in honor of my grandmother, which turned into the biggest hillbilly shit brawl before said family dinner that I had ever seen.

Enough about the original, though – let’s move onto the sequel.

Friday of last week I got a phone call from my mother. I don’t usually answer her calls anymore; but this time she called from her hillbilly husband’s trailer line and I didn’t recognize the number. She BS’ed with me for a few minutes before saying that her hillbilly husband was going to tell me all about their anniversary plans to celebrate one year since they eloped to the county courthouse (the witnesses were the checkout ladies from the Goodwill she bought her wedding frock from, I shit you not faithful blog followers).

But when her hillbilly husband came on the phone, he didn’t say a damn word about their anniversary.

“Heather? Listen… are you going to let Alexis go to Colorado with her dad?”

“What? Oh, um yeah – I agreed to it and I really have no reason not to.”

“You know it’s going to be hard to get her back once she’s across state lines.”

“What? What are you talking about?”

“I mean if he doesn’t want to come back. Look, I have experience with this! EXPERIENCE!!”

“Okay. Well it’s a little late for this and I think you are being a little paranoid. I’m sorry, I thought you were going to tell me about your anniversary plans.”

“Look, all I’m saying is your mother and I have been talking and we decided we should let you know we’re going to be suing you for grandparent’s rights.”

“Uh huh…”

“What you don’t think we will? When I get to California with your mom in August, I’m stirring up the dirt!! I’LL GET MY GRANDPARENT’S RIGHTS! I WANT VISITATIONS AT MY HOME IN NEW MEXICO – AND NOW! LET THEM THROW ME IN JAIL IF THEY HAVE TO!!!”

“Uh huh…”

“I GOT RIGHTS!”

“Uh huh… look, if you aren’t going to tell me about your anniversary plans, I really need to get off the phone now. We’re on our way to Chuck E. Cheese.”

“HAVE FUN EATING AT A RESTAURANT OWNED AND RUN BY A RAT!!”

And then he hung up.

‘What the fuck?’ is what I said too. I have met this guy – in person – for a total of 20 minutes, over two years ago when they first started dating. He told me then that he and my mom had been busy for a few weeks “keeping warm if you know what I mean.” A few weeks later my mother asked me if I knew of any types of gondola rides that “allow for private time,” and also if I knew where she could buy some crotchless panties for a woman her age. At that time, I didn’t think things would last too long; but then one day she was “visiting” him in New Mexico and called to say they had eloped. Since then it’s been one hillbilly shittin’ thing after another: trailer dramas, moving dramas, hillbilly-mother-in-law dramas. And I’m sure none of you will forget when my mother showed up at my father’s garage sale to sell some of her own wares, and displayed them on a Poise pantyshields box she dug out of the dumpster behind my grandparent’s assisted living facility.

Fucking crazy, right?

So after a few days of speculation, I realize that there are a couple of possibilities that made this sequel a clear path down the trail to psychosis:

1. They live in a tiny, aluminum trailer in New Mexico. It’s fucking hot in New Mexico. Maybe the air conditioning broke and their brains are now fried.

2. They ran out of crazy pills and thought that rather than pay another copay, jelly beans would be an adequate substitute.

3. One hillbilly brawl ended and now they are looking for another hillbilly brawl, because (quite frankly) brawl and shit is what hillbillies like to do.

All I know is that from now on I’m back to not answering numbers that are unrecognizable.