You Cant Make this stuff up

Tag: Family

” Thanks for the Invitation. Where’s the Nearest Motel 6? “

“We’d love to have you stay with us!”

Very kind. Very generous.

Very dangerous.

I love visiting friends and family. Dinner, conversation, a few laughs. But somewhere between “Have another cup of coffee” and “We’ve already made up the guest room,” I start checking hotel availability under the table.

At 75, I know what I need: a comfortable mattress, a nearby bathroom and the ability to leave a room without explaining where I’m going.

Being a houseguest complicates all three.

“Don’t be silly. Why spend money on a hotel? Stay here. You’re part of the family!”

That sounds wonderful until you remember what being part of a family actually involves.

Make yourself at home. Within limits.

“Help yourself to anything in the refrigerator!”

So I do.

I find a strawberry popsicle in the freezer. Perfect. I unwrap it, take a bite and suddenly a snot-nosed kid appears, screaming like I’ve just backed over his bicycle.

Apparently, it was HIS strawberry popsicle.

Nobody mentioned that the freezer had property rights.

Now his mother is looking at me like I stole his college fund, and I’m trying to figure out whether offering him the uneaten half will improve the situation.

It doesn’t.

The guest bedroom.

“ That used to be our mattress before we got the new one.  It’s been a comfy one. We actually got it on sale at Discount Mattress the year we were married 25 years ago.”

It might be comfy if you like a mattress which dips like the Grand Canyon.

The bed also comes with enough decorative pillows to furnish a small hotel. I spend ten minutes removing them, then try to decide what to do with them.

Do I make the bed? Strip the bed? Fold the sheets? Take to washer?  Not an issue at Motel 6.

Worst of all…It happens to be the popsicle kids bedroom.   He is having a full drama workshop because he has to snuggle on the couch shared with Princess, their prized white standard poodle.

This ain’t going to end well.

Then there’s the guest bathroom.

It’s booked solid all morning.

Someone’s showering. Someone’s doing their hair. Someone’s in there so long I begin to wonder whether there’s another exit.

When I finally get in, the toilet overflows.

My fault, of course.

Six people have been using it since dawn, but I’m the one standing beside it when the water comes over the rim. That makes me the prime suspect.

Now I’m holding a plunger, standing in an inch of water and explaining that there was a preexisting condition.

The toilet’s.

Fortunately, there are six beautiful towels right in front of me.

Unfortunately, they’re the guest towels.

Guest towels are not for guests.

You would think the name settles the question.

It doesn’t.

“You didn’t use those, did you?”

Of course not. I dried my hands on my pants like a civilized houseguest.

Those towels are part of the bathroom decor. They’re folded, layered and arranged in a way that suggests touching one might trigger an alarm.

Meanwhile, the toilet is flooding the bathroom.

I look at the water. I look at the towels.

Apparently, we’d rather lose the floor.

So what about Princess the family poodle.

She has a beautiful poodle hairdo, manicured nails and absolutely no respect for my personal space.

She wants to be petted. Then scratched. Then petted again.

She sniffs me, jumps onto the couch and, just when I relax, sticks her nose in my crotch.

“She likes you!”

I’d prefer a handshake.

The family is oblivious. They cannot imagine anyone not adoring their little Princess.

Princess gets seven premium gourmet meals delivered every week by FedEx Priority.

“We certainly can’t allow her to eat processed food.”

I nod while eating my hot dog.

The dog’s dinner arrived in an insulated container. Mine came in a package of eight.

I’m tempted to slip her a bite, but I can already see how that ends: Princess makes a deposit on the living room carpet, and I’m responsible for another plumbing problem.

I keep the hot dog to myself.

I’m already wanted in connection with a popsicle.

Don’t borrow their car.

“Need to run to Walgreens? Take ours!”

Good chance the gas gauge will be below a quarter tank.

I can’t return it nearly empty. That would be rude.

So I fill it.

Then, under the gas station lights, I notice it could use a wash.

They’ve been so nice to let me use it. It’s the least I can do.

Seventy dollars to run to Walgreens.

Uber would have been fifteen.

And there’s no such thing as doing nothing.

At a hotel, I can sit quietly with a cup of coffee and stare out the window.

At someone’s house, that causes concern.

“Are you bored?”

No.

“Would you like the television on?”

No.

“We could go somewhere.”

I was enjoying being here until we started discussing it.

If I go to the guest room, I’m antisocial. If I stay in the living room, I need entertaining. If I put my shoes on, someone asks where I’m going.

I begin to understand why Princess is so excited when the door opens.

Eventually, we make our escape.

We pack. We check the drawers. We check the bathroom. We load the car.

Hugs all around.

“We loved having you!”

“We had a wonderful time!”

Nobody mentions the toilet.

We pull away, turn the corner and finally relax.

Then:

“Did you get the pills?”

Of course not.

Somebody always leaves something. Pills, underwear, a toothbrush. There’s always one little item determined to extend the visit.

We turn around.

The door opens.

“Hey! Come on in and have a cup of coffee before you head back. We still have a few popsicles left. And Princess fell in love with you!”

“Wow, we’d love to, but Jane is not feeling well.  Believe she has COVID, and we sure don’t want to spread it.”

Jane is perfectly healthy.

She’s in the car with her seat belt fastened, supporting the diagnosis.

They hand over the pills. We say goodbye again.

This time, we keep driving.

I do appreciate the invitation. I appreciate the hospitality, the meals and the effort people make to welcome us.

And I’d like us all to remain friends.

Which is why, before our next trip, I’ll be saying a little prayer.

The Houseguest Serenity Prayer

God, grant me the serenity to decline their invitation,

the courage to book a room at Motel 6,

and the wisdom to keep that reservation.

Keep the light on

Amen

And please, Lord, let the towels be for drying.

More stories at:  crazyfamily.blog

October 17, 2026
Who the Hell Plays a Banjo?

Me…for 70 years.

Apparently, it started when I was an infant. I’d get on all fours in my crib, rock back and forth, and bang my head against the front panel.

The doctor told Mom this could be a sign of future musical ability and suggested trying an instrument when I got older.

At six, Mom asked, “How would you like to take banjo lessons?”

“Yeah, I guess. I don’t have much else going on. But can I finish Mighty Mouse first?”

Mom and Dad loved Dixieland music from the ’20s and ’30s. She didn’t like guitars, so my musical future had already been decided.

We finally found a banjo in a pawn shop. Even in the mid-’50s, people were hocking them. Today, you can hardly walk into a pawn shop without seeing two or three hanging in the back.

Apparently, plenty of mothers had the same idea.

By ten, Mom had signed me up for weekly half-hour lessons at $2.50 a session. I took the city bus—ten cents—from St. Matthew’s Grade School to Copp Music Center in South Bend.

After three months, it was getting boring. Other kids were listening to the latest ’50s hits. I was trying to perfect “Let Me Call You Sweetheart.”

My friends had rock ’n’ roll. I had their grandparents’ wedding music.

I wanted to quit.

Mom responded with my first entrepreneurial opportunity: she paid me a penny a minute to practice.

An hour earned me sixty cents. In those days, that bought a lot of Tootsie Rolls.

My musical passion suddenly returned.

I kept playing through grade school talent shows and high school bus trips. Once I learned the school fight song, “Yankee Doodle Dandy,” and “Row, Row, Row Your Boat,” I had enough material to entertain a captive audience.

And on a bus, they really were captive.

Over the years, I learned a bunch of old Dixieland favorites, played parties, wrote and performed commercials, and composed company songs. One company even hired me to travel around the country entertaining and writing songs for their customers.

Mom’s penny-a-minute investment was paying off.

One of my claims to fame was writing and singing a political fight song for a congressional candidate. He was so impressed that he had me travel throughout the district performing it at rallies.

Then came Election Day.

He lost by the biggest margin in Indiana history.

I don’t put that one on my résumé.

At Notre Dame, I was cited for playing the Notre Dame Victory March across campus after a few too many adult beverages.

School spirit apparently had a volume limit.

In Germany, I got kicked out of the Hofbräuhaus for playing my banjo while the oompah band was on break.

The waitresses—the muscular ones who could carry eight mugs of beer at once—picked me up and carried me outside.

I continued my performance beneath an apartment window.

A woman on the second floor poured a bucket of water on me for waking up her kids.

My first outdoor concert came with a complimentary shower.

I’ve also played at dozens of assisted living facilities and nursing homes. My strongest market has always been the over-sixty crowd.

Unfortunately, my audience keeps dwindling.

And at seventy-five, I’m now part of my own target market.

But my most memorable performance had nothing to do with politics, beer, or buckets of water.

I was playing at a nursing home when I noticed the nurses were crying.

What had I done?

They told me one resident hadn’t communicated in any form for six months.

When I played “Let Me Call You Sweetheart,” she started singing.

The song I’d been so bored trying to learn as a kid had reached someone nobody else could reach.

That one stayed with me.

Of course, I don’t always keep things quiet. Sometimes I go into my version of Rod Stewart—jumping around, singing, and leading the crowd through the Hokey Pokey.

After one particularly energetic performance, my sister’s high school friend asked her:

“Has your brother always been like this?”

I took that as a compliment.

After seventy years, I’ve heard every banjo joke there is.

“If you put a banjo and an accordion in a canvas bag and throw it off the Empire State Building, which one breaks first?”

“Who cares?”

Well, my banjo is still intact. It’s taken me across the country, gotten me thrown out of a German beer hall, helped a politician lose spectacularly, and brought a song back to a woman who hadn’t spoken in six months.

It’s been a real fun run.

And I still have a few Tootsie Rolls left.

More stories at : crazyfamily.blog

October 9, 2026
At 75, I Went to the Hospital. The Confusion Started Immediately.

At 75, I thought I had a reasonably good command of the English language.

Then I went to the emergency room.

Apparently, hospitals have stopped using English.

Going to the ER used to be simple. You walked in and said, “I’m sick.”

Someone looked at you and said, “Okay. Sit down.”

Not anymore.

Today, before anyone determines whether you’re actually going to live, you first have to prove who you are, where you live, who your doctor is, what medications you take, what you’re allergic to, who should be called if you die and whether you have any idea why you came there in the first place.

Then they hand you an electronic pad.

“Sign here.”

I signed.

“Here.”

I signed again.

“Initial here.”

Then another signature.

After signing enough documents to buy a house, refinance it and leave it to my children, I was beginning to develop carpal tunnel syndrome.

I finally asked what I had agreed to.

Apparently, everything.

Treatment. Privacy. Release of information.

And HIPAA.

HIPAA protects your medical privacy, which is reassuring. Apparently, before HIPAA, hospital employees just wandered around telling people:

“Hey, did you hear what Voll has?”

Now they can’t tell anyone anything.

Occasionally, including you.

I picture a courtroom.

“Mr. Voll, how do you plead?”

“Not guilty.”

“Your Honor, due to HIPAA regulations, we’re unable to tell the defendant what he’s charged with.”

“Excellent. Proceed.”

Eventually, a nurse appeared.

“Mr. Voll, we’re ready for your triage.”

My what?

At 75, I thought I’d heard just about everything.

Apparently not.

I looked around.

There was a nurse.

There was me.

I wasn’t sure who the third person was supposed to be.

Then I realized she’d said triage.

Not threesome.

That was disappointing.

Apparently, triage is where they decide how quickly you need medical attention.

Blood pressure. Temperature. Pulse. Oxygen.

Then came the big question.

“On a scale of one to ten, how severe is your pain?”

I’ve never understood that question.

What exactly is a ten?

Kidney stone?

Shark attack?

Notre Dame losing to USC?

Give me some parameters.

Eventually, the doctor came in.

That’s when I discovered there’s another language you need to learn before going to the hospital:

Abbreviations.

MRI. PSA. IBS. ICU.

I decided to translate them myself.

MRI — Might Reveal Injury

PSA — Prostate Says Attention

IBS — I Better Sprint

And my personal favorite:

ICU — I See You

That one seems unnecessarily obvious.

If I’m lying in intensive care and the nurse walks into the room, I already know she sees me.

Then the doctor started speaking fluent Hospital.

“Your CBC looks okay, but I’d like a CMP, maybe a CT, and then we’ll have you follow up with your PCP.”

I nodded thoughtfully.

“Absolutely.”

I had absolutely no idea what he’d just said.

But at 75, I’ve learned something important.

If a doctor uses more than three abbreviations in one sentence, just nod.

Eventually, I made it out of the ER.

I survived Registration.

I survived HIPAA.

I survived the pain scale.

I even survived the alphabet.

And I learned one very important lesson about modern medicine:

The next time a nurse tells me she’s ready for my triage—

I’m going to listen very carefully before getting too excited.

September 8, 2026
At 75, I Got Married. We Threw Out the Wedding Rulebook.

Carol and I got married on July 18, 2026.

Why get married at this point in our lives? Our combined age is 144 years—or 1,008 dog years.

I was getting tired of being introduced as “Grammy’s boyfriend.”

I felt pretty good for 75 and reasonably confident I could live long enough to make the last payment on a 72-month truck loan.

We had both been down the aisle before, and who knows how many dog years we have left? So if we were going to do this, we weren’t interested in having a traditional wedding. We wanted something unique, reasonably inexpensive and, most importantly, fun.

Our goal was simple: Make it the best damn wedding most of our guests had ever attended.

Based on what they told us afterward, I think we came pretty close.

Forget the Fancy Ballroom

We rented our residential community hall for $500. No fancy hotel, no country club, no ballroom.

A friend created the decorations using artificial flowers, glass vases, peacock feathers, blue lights and a glitter backdrop. It was beautiful and we didn’t need a second mortgage.

There were 12 round tables arranged on both sides of a wide center aisle.

Your seat for the ceremony was also your seat for dinner and the reception, so there was no ceremony in one room followed by 90 people wandering around trying to figure out where they were supposed to go next. Your silverware, napkin and water were already waiting for you.

We didn’t have a head table either. I’ve never understood why the wedding party has to sit in a straight line facing everyone like they’re about to conduct a City Council meeting, while their spouses are stuck in the back with the bride’s second cousin and his third-grade teacher.

Instead, Carol and I had a small table right in the middle of the room, surrounded by everybody. We didn’t use it much. I think we managed about three bites of food before we started making the rounds and talking to people. After dinner, our little table disappeared and we were right in the middle of the party.

Exactly where we wanted to be.

Some other traditions didn’t make the cut. There was no garter toss. At 75, I wasn’t completely confident I’d be able to get back up.

There was no bouquet toss either. Carol’s bouquet was artificial, and we doubted anyone wanted to catch it badly enough to risk a concussion.

Besides, our guests ranged in age from about two to 80, with the average somewhere in the 50s.

There weren’t that many single people, and most of the ones who were single apparently had enough sense not to try this again.

Unlike us.

We didn’t spend a fortune on decorations, but there were three places where we decided not to go cheap: food, photography and entertainment.

We hired a good caterer and served a quality buffet. People will eventually forget whether the bride’s bouquet matched the tablecloth. They will remember lousy food.

The same goes for photography. I don’t care how many times Uncle Marvin tells you he just bought a used iPhone 12 and will take your wedding pictures as his gift.

Don’t do it.

We hired professionals for both photography and video, and I’m glad we did. We also took pictures of every possible family combination. Some of these people hadn’t been together in years, and now they have family portraits that may never have happened otherwise.

But the thing that probably made the biggest difference wasn’t the food or the photographs.

It was the production.

At 75, You Don’t Walk Down the Aisle

You dance.

We spent months figuring out how we wanted the ceremony to feel and listened to more than 100 songs.

When it was time for the wedding to begin, I wasn’t standing nervously at the front waiting for Carol. I entered wearing coat tails, a top hat and carrying a cane.

Then Stevie Wonder started singing “For Once in My Life.”

And I danced down the aisle.

No rehearsal. No choreography. Just go.

The wedding party followed behind me, and I think that’s when most of our guests realized this wasn’t going to be a normal wedding.

Then Carol entered. She looked absolutely gorgeous in a dress that matched her peacock theme, but there was no Here Comes the Bride. Instead, Etta James started singing “At Last.”

After 1,008 combined dog years, it seemed appropriate.

We exchanged our individual vows, but we had one more vow to make together. Most couples wait until the reception for their first dance.

We didn’t.

Kenny Chesney’s “Me and You” started playing, and right there during the ceremony, Carol and I danced and sang the song to each other as our joint wedding vow.

That was the moment I’ll never forget.

There wasn’t a dry eye in the room.

Including mine.

Then, after we were pronounced husband and wife, Natalie Cole’s “This Will Be (An Everlasting Love)” started blasting. There was no solemn procession and no carefully measured steps.

We danced.

And everybody was already smiling before the reception even started.

Then We Had a Party

I’m convinced a great DJ can make a wedding, and a bad one can turn it into four hours of people checking their watches.

We got lucky. Ours knocked it out of the park, but it wasn’t luck alone. We met with him beforehand and explained exactly what we wanted.

This wasn’t simply, “Play some wedding music.” We told him the atmosphere we wanted, the genres we liked and the music we didn’t want.

Our reception was probably 80% great dance-and-sing-along music from the ’70s and ’80s. People knew the songs. They sang, danced, laughed and, most importantly, stayed.

That’s what we wanted.

We spent six months planning the wedding, not because we wanted it to be perfect, but because we wanted it to be ours. We skipped traditions we didn’t care about, kept the ones we liked and invented a few of our own

If you’re crazy enough to get married when you and your bride have a combined age of 1,008 dog years, you might as well have go non-traditional and all have a great time

September 6, 2026
The Oddities of Funerals — And Why We Celebrate Life Instead

Over the years, Celebrations of Life have become the norm—and for good reason.

Instead of gloomily hovering around a casket, reading flower cards like scorecards, and hearing “Sorry for your loss” a hundred times, we started doing things differently.

I never liked that phrase anyway.

Loss? That’s what the bank calls it when they review your profit-and-loss statement and deny your loan.

Mom or Dad isn’t a loss.

They’re a person.

The Oddities of Funerals

The funeral business has its own language and traditions that sound downright strange when you stop and think about them.

The Showing

“We’re going to John’s showing.”

Sounds like a movie premiere.

The body isn’t a first-run film.

The Guest Book

Has anyone ever climbed into the attic years later and said:

“Let’s get out Aunt Dorothy’s wake book and see who showed up—and more importantly, who didn’t?”

The Wake

Another unfortunate choice of words.

Nobody in that casket is waking up.

The Obituary

They usually read like saintly résumés:

“Devoted father. Pillar of the community. Beloved by everyone. Adored his Cocker Spaniel.”

Then comes the list of people he is “survived by.”

Technically, if you’re reading his obituary, he didn’t survive anything.

Prepping the Body

Maybe this sounds better than embalming.

“Aunt Mildred got embalmed this afternoon” sounds like she passed out at a college keg party.

The Corpse

There’s a word nobody puts on a bucket list.

“George enjoyed a successful 30-year career in customer service at GEICO.

And now he’s a corpse.”

Quite a career transition.

Casket or Coffin?

I always thought they were the same thing.

Apparently not.

A casket is the Cadillac model: four sides, hinges, polished metal, fancy satin interior and handles.

A coffin is usually wood, and some don’t even have hinged lids.

You have to pop the top for the showing.

And apparently some handles are decorative.

That could present a challenge for the pallbearers.

Basically:

Sold as is.

No Shoes

The deceased are often buried without shoes.

Apparently feet can swell after death, making shoes difficult to put on.

Shouldn’t be a major problem.

I doubt anybody is hoofing it over to 7-Eleven for a Slurpee.

The Hearse

Do we really need a $150,000 Cadillac beast with a police escort to make a three-mile trip to the cemetery?

Dad spent his whole life telling us to save money.

Then we put him in the most expensive station wagon in town.

Who Gets the Stuff?

Before the first shovel hits dirt, another great family tradition begins:

Who gets what?

In our family, Mom, the grandmothers and the aunts all had beautiful, expensive jewelry.

My sisters sucked that stuff up like a used Hoover.

When Grandpa died, we boys figured our turn had finally arrived.

Maybe some stock.

Maybe a little cash.

My younger brother was so confident that he put a deposit on a Silverado Diesel Duramax.

He told the finance manager that as soon as Grandpa’s inheritance came through, he’d wire the money and pick up the truck.

Then the will was read.

His inheritance?

Grandpa’s 25-year company anniversary watch—with a cracked crystal—and a pair of cuff links engraved with Grandpa’s initials.

The only money my brother got out of the deal was his deposit back.

Celebrating Life, Our Way

Our family learned early that life is too short to spend every funeral being miserable.

When my sister had only about a month to live from an incurable lung disease, we threw her a going-away party.

Cocktails. Dinner. Singing. Stories. Laughter.

My brother even gave her an urn as a going-away present.

Even the priest said it was one of the most incredible sendoffs he had ever witnessed.

And my sister got to be there for it.

When Dad died, we went off-script again.

The hearse made a detour to our family home, where we turned Dad’s casket into a makeshift champagne bar.

We toasted him, told stories, sang songs and finished with one final rendition of “Happy Trails.”

The funeral staff looked on in disbelief.

Dad would have loved every minute of it.

Mom’s Wicker Casket

Then there was Mom.

Mom was a character, so an ordinary casket just wasn’t going to cut it.

We went casket shopping.

The cheap ones looked like tin cans.

The Cadillac models were rustproof, waterproof and probably tornado-resistant.

Nothing seemed like Mom.

Then somebody remembered her white wicker furniture.

For 50 years, our family porch had been filled with it.

So we wondered:

Do they make wicker caskets?

My youngest brother found one online and had it shipped overnight from San Francisco.

One problem.

It arrived in natural wicker.

Mom would have turned over in her grave before we even put her in it.

So my sister started calling auto-body shops, telling them she had a “couch” that needed to be painted white.

The measurements sounded a little strange for a couch, but eventually somebody agreed.

Soon that body shop had pictures of Corvettes, Mustangs, classic cars…

And one beautifully painted white wicker casket.

The grandkids even came up with a jingle:

“A tisket, a tasket, Grandma’s buried in a wicker casket.”

It was perfect.

Funny, heartfelt and completely Mom.

The Takeaway

Funerals don’t have to be gloomy productions filled with awkward phrases, expensive rituals and people whispering around a casket.

They can be about stories, laughter, family and celebrating the person who actually lived the life.

Our family has sent people off with champagne, songs, jokes, an urn given as a present and one custom-painted white wicker casket.

Maybe we don’t do funerals exactly the way we’re supposed to.

But we do them our way.

And somehow, I think the people inside those caskets would approve.

September 2, 2026
Grandpa AD Mac: The King of the Prank

Every family has its legends.

Some are remembered for wisdom.

Some for business success.

And some — like my Grandpa AD Mac — are remembered for sheer mischief.

Grandpa and Grandma Irene built a successful Michigan bean-processing business. When asked how he became so successful? “

“Simple…it’s our slogan. “Eat our Beans and Let Us Hear from Ya”, but that isn’t why we still talk about him.

We remember the pranks.

The one-liners.

And the stories that still get told at family gatherings decades later.

Grandpa summed up his feelings about grandchildren perfectly:

“You kids bring me double happiness — happy when you come, and happy when you go.”

That pretty much tells you everything you need to know about Grandpa.

He was quick with a line, fearless with a prank, and always looking for his next victim.

The Bean Business

By day, Grandpa and Grandma Mac ran a fast-growing Michigan bean-processing company.

They worked hard.

They built a successful business.

But once Grandpa left the factory, beans took a back seat to entertainment.

And Grandpa was usually the entertainment.

The Funeral Lady

One of Grandpa’s best friends was a small-town funeral director who had a problem.

There was a little old lady in town who regularly checked the obituaries and attended funerals for people she barely knew.

She had a routine.

Sign the guest book.

Walk up to the casket.

Lean over the deceased.

Whisper:

“I knew him well.”

Then head straight for the sandwiches and lemonade.

Apparently, free funeral food was a major part of her retirement plan.

The funeral director had finally had enough.

Grandpa had a solution.

They staged a fake wake.

Grandpa put on his best suit, climbed into a casket and waited.

Sure enough, the woman arrived.

She signed the guest book.

Grandpa ate his breakfast.

Walked solemnly toward the casket.

Leaned over Grandpa.

And whispered:

“I knew him well.”

Grandpa suddenly shot straight up out of the casket.

“THE HELL YOU DID!”

I don’t know exactly what happened next.

But I’m fairly certain she skipped the sandwiches.

The Hospital Trick

Grandpa didn’t restrict his pranks to friends and relatives.

Medical professionals were fair game.

During one hospital stay, Grandpa received his breakfast tray.

Eggs.

Ham.

Toast.

And a glass of apple juice.

Beside the tray, the nurse left a sterile specimen cup.

“Mr. McIntyre, enjoy your breakfast. We’ll need a urine sample.”

But he didn’t drink the apple juice.

Instead, he carefully poured it into the specimen cup.

A little later, the nurse returned.

She spotted the full container.

“Perfect. Thank you.”

She reached for it.

Grandpa grabbed it first, held it up to the light and studied it.

Then he said:

“Wow. This looks so good, I think I’m going to run it through twice.”

And drank it.

I would have paid good money to see that nurse’s face.

The Great Denture Swap

But Grandpa’s masterpiece may have happened at a Michigan Bean Association convention at a historic resort.

These conventions supposedly involved beans.

From the stories I heard, beans occupied approximately 15 minutes of the agenda.

The rest involved drinking, joking, storytelling and harassing competitors.

One night, around 3:00 in the morning, Grandpa slipped the front-desk clerk twenty dollars and somehow acquired the master key.

Then he went to work.

Room by room, Grandpa quietly entered while everyone slept.

His mission?

Swap their dentures.

Apparently, the Michigan bean industry had a surprisingly high percentage of false teeth.

The next morning, chaos erupted.

Hungover bean executives woke up, reached for their dentures and discovered that their teeth no longer fit.

Some apparently thought they’d had a stroke.

Others thought something had happened to their jaws overnight.

Eventually somebody asked the obvious question:

“Where’s Mac?”

The mystery was solved.

But there was still one problem.

Nobody knew whose teeth belonged to whom.

So all the dentures were placed on a table in the hotel dining room.

Imagine breakfast.

Coffee.

Eggs.

Toast.

And thirty sets of used teeth lined up next to the silverware.

One by one, grown men walked around the table trying on dentures until somebody yelled:

“These are mine!”

Disgusting?

Absolutely.

Ridiculous?

Completely.

Pure Grandpa Mac.

Closing Time

Grandpa also had no patience for guests who overstayed their welcome.

After several hours of listening to somebody discuss their retirement account, gas mileage, medical problems or grandchildren who definitely should have been starting quarterback, Grandpa had a solution.

He’d look across the room at Grandma and announce:

“Irene, we need to go to bed so these people can go home!”

Subtlety was not one of Grandpa’s strengths.

But it worked.

Grandpa’s Real Legacy

Grandpa and Grandma built a successful business.

That was an accomplishment.

But decades later, nobody sits around telling stories about how many bags of beans they processed in 1963.

We tell the story about the woman at the funeral.

We tell the story about the apple juice.

And we definitely tell the story about a dining-room table covered with dentures.

Grandpa understood something long before the rest of us did:

Life is more fun when you give people something to laugh about.

His bean business may have fed a lot of people.

But Grandpa AD Mac gave our family something that lasted even longer.

A lifetime supply of stories.

September 1, 2026
OMG, Elton is on the Reindeer

Mom was a Christmas freak.

Hundreds of lights. Two trees. Stockings everywhere. Christmas music nonstop. And enough relatives to violate several fire codes.

Even Bobo, our ¾ Collie, ¼ German Shepherd, wandered around with mistletoe hanging from his collar.

Mom also solved the annual in-law Christmas war brilliantly.

She held Christmas twice—Christmas Eve and Christmas Day.

Same food. Same drinks. Same presents. Same relatives telling the same stories.

If that didn’t work for your in-laws, it might be time to fold them back into the community.

Christmas dinner was the one formal event in our otherwise completely informal family. Sport coats, dresses, cocktails by the fireplace, piano-playing nieces and nephews, followed by Mom’s traditional beef stroganoff.

This went peacefully for nearly 40 years.

Then came Elton John Rocket Man.

Elton was my Bouvier des Flandres—a huge, shaggy Belgian sheepdog who looked like a cuddly bear.

The grandkids begged me to bring him to Christmas.

My wife at the time had a prediction:

“Absolutely not. He’ll screw something up, and it’ll be my fault.”

I promised Elton would stay downstairs with the kids.

She reluctantly agreed.

For a while, everything went beautifully.

Even Mrs. C, our 98-year-old great-aunt twice removed, was comfortably settled beside the fireplace. Next to her were the stockings, the Nativity scene and a decorated Styrofoam reindeer.

Then Elton escaped.

He crept down the hallway, peeked into the living room and spotted the reindeer.

Game on.

Elton charged behind the sofa, slid behind Mrs. C and mounted that Styrofoam reindeer like he’d been waiting for Christmas all year.

Mrs. C calmly tapped her cane.

“I think we have a problem over here.”

It took two of us to pry Elton off his new girlfriend.

My wife was ready to launch herself through the thermal-pane windows.

“We’re going home. NOW.”

“Just let us get through dinner.”

I locked Elton downstairs and hid the violated reindeer in the coat closet.

Crisis over.

Or so I thought.

Dinner ended. Everyone bundled up to leave. Elton was standing innocently in the foyer.

Then someone opened the coat closet.

Elton spotted the reindeer.

Round two.

He charged like a linebacker, bowling over poor 98-year-old Mrs. C and heading straight for his Christmas sweetheart.

The reindeer didn’t stand a chance.

Neither did Mrs. C.

Once again, it took a team effort to separate dog from décor.

My family howled.

My wife didn’t.

On the way home, I got the speech.

You know the one.

Eventually—like all challenging in-laws—

she was folded back into the community.

August 31, 2026
It All Started with Bill and Ginny

Of course, every crazy family has to start somewhere.

Ours started with Bill and Ginny.

They met on a blind date.

Dad was quiet and passive. Mom was the life of the party—a little crazy and a great storyteller.

After their third date, Mom started calling Dad “Wallet.”

Dad couldn’t figure it out.

Did she think he had money? Came from money?

Finally, after several weeks, he asked:

“Why do you keep calling me Wallet?”

Mom stared at him.

“How could a family with the last name Fold name their son Bill?”

There was only one problem.

His last name was Voll.

Didn’t matter.

For the next 60-plus years, every card Mom gave Dad was signed:

Wallet.

The Drake Hotel

Mom and Dad didn’t exactly master the Catholic rhythm method.

Nancy was conceived on their honeymoon, and the rest of us started arriving one after another.

Years later, we asked Mom:

“How did you end up with 11 kids?”

She explained.

“After Nancy was born, I had three months of no sleep, diapers and baby food. I needed a break.

“So Dad and I would go to the Drake Hotel in Chicago for the weekend.

“And every time I came home from the Drake, I was pregnant.”

Apparently the Drake had an exceptionally effective turn-down service.

Years later, we actually went back to the Drake bar for a conception celebration.

And every Father’s Day we’d tell Dad:

“Thank God you didn’t take piano lessons—or none of us would be here.”

Then Came Nancy

Nancy was the oldest.

And apparently responsible for training the rest of us.

At seven years old, she taught her younger siblings how to fill empty bleach bottles with water, add dry ice, screw on the caps, run—

and watch them explode.

At the next parent-teacher conference, the nun told Mom:

“Nancy is a wonderful student. Very well behaved. But she has the wildest imagination.”

Apparently the class had been asked what exciting things they’d done over summer vacation.

Nancy answered:

“I taught my brothers and sisters how to blow up bleach bottles.”

It wasn’t imagination.

Nancy Finds Religion

Nancy also took her Catholic education seriously.

She’d been taught Catholicism was the road to Heaven, so she worried about our Jewish neighbors, the Altmans.

She brought them cookies because, as she explained:

“They’re not going to make the bus.”

Then came Good Friday.

Nancy had us build a wooden cross and plant it in the backyard.

Next she recruited Kim, our seven-year-old Protestant neighbor.

She stripped him down to his shorts, tied him to the cross and smeared ketchup across his stomach.

And who had a perfect view of the Crucifixion?

The Jewish neighbors we’d just given cookies to.

The Backyard Funeral Home

Nancy also conducted funerals.

Lots of funerals.

Dogs. Cats. Birds. Chipmunks. Turtles. Goldfish. Guinea pigs.

Even an alligator.

Shoeboxes became caskets. We became mourners.

Nancy conducted full funeral Masses wearing a bedsheet for vestments, drinking grape juice from a wineglass and distributing Wonder Bread communion.

By the time we eventually sold the house, the backyard had so many graves it practically needed its own cemetery map.

We had to resod the whole thing.

And remember—

Nancy was only the first of eleven.

August 31, 2026
Date an Undesirable, See the World

Dating in a family of 11 was an adventure in itself.

With six girls and five boys, dating sometimes became a family partnership. The girls attended an all-girls Catholic academy and Catholic college. The boys went to Notre Dame. Eventually, one brother married one of our sisters’ roommates, and three of the girls married Notre Dame guys.

Apparently, we didn’t believe in looking too far from home.

The $1 Chaperone

One of the girls I met and dated was from Cuba, and she was beautiful. We hit it off and dated for three years.

But with nice comes a price.

Her parents had two mandates.

First, she could date only good Catholic boys.

I passed that test.

Second, there had to be a chaperone on every date.

That was a little more challenging.

Fortunately, I had ten siblings.

I offered one of them $1 to ride along, sit in the back seat while I picked up my date, and make sure her parents saw that their daughter was properly chaperoned.

It worked beautifully.

For a while.

Soon $1 wasn’t enough. The going rate climbed to $1.25, then $1.50, then $2.

By the six-month mark, even $2 couldn’t get me a chaperone.

I was crushed.

Then Christmas came—and so did a miracle.

My family gave me a folding dummy dressed in a Notre Dame sweatshirt and stocking cap.

Problem solved.

Before picking up my date, I’d pull the dummy out of the trunk, unfold him, put him in the back seat and fasten his seat belt.

There he sat, faithfully chaperoning us.

It worked like a charm.

For three years.

The Girl Who Was Never Going Anywhere

Mom was concerned about my sister Jenna.

She had no interest in dating or proms. While the rest of us were going out, Jenna was perfectly happy at home in her jeans and saddle shoes, sitting at the dining room table.

Mom worried:

“She’s never going to meet anyone, get married, go anyplace or enjoy life.”

Then we boys brought a few guys home from college to party after a football game.

One was a quiet accounting major with dark-rimmed glasses and a pocket protector containing two pencils and a pen.

He went gaga over Jenna.

They got married.

He quickly moved up the corporate ladder, eventually becoming a senior vice president with a global insurance firm.

And while the rest of us live modestly and plan a trip to an amusement park in Ohio…

Jenna is in Monaco on a Mediterranean cruise.

The Mom Smell Test

Whether we liked it or not, anyone we dated eventually had to pass Mom’s smell test.

If Mom decided a boyfriend or girlfriend was an “undesirable,” she could be remarkably cunning and creative in trying to uproot the relationship.

My sister Susan dated Lawrence for four years.

Lawrence did not fit Mom’s preferred profile.

Mom tried coercion.

Grounding.

Strict curfews.

The silent treatment.

Nothing worked.

So Mom changed tactics.

“Susan, we think it would be a great experience for you to spend six months abroad in a student exchange program.”

Susan jumped at the opportunity.

Off to England she went.

Six months later she came home.

And went right back to Lawrence.

Mom wasn’t finished.

“Susan, here’s another wonderful opportunity to learn and travel in Germany.”

Off to Germany she went.

She came home.

Back to Lawrence.

By now, the rest of us had figured out Mom’s international dating strategy.

One of us finally asked:

“Susan, are you really going to break up with Lawrence?”

Susan had her answer:

“Yes. As soon as I get back from Norway next year.”

And that became one of the great lessons of growing up in our family:

Date an undesirable. See the world!

You can’t make this stuff up.

August 17, 2026
Those God Awful Christmas Letters

🎄 From Our (Slightly Broken) Home to Yours…

Every year, we get those cheery, glitter-dusted Christmas letters from friends whose kids all got into Ivy League schools, started tech companies from the garage, and won gold at the Junior Olympics. Meanwhile, over here…

We thought we’d balance things out.

📬 The 2024 Highlights from the House of Jinny and Bill:

We love Holiday Traditions but this year’s tree fell over three times. We just left it leaning.

The Family Minivan: Still running, even after catching fire briefly in July.

👣 Nancy

Our eldest got an ingrown toenail that turned into sepsis. Four ER trips later, she’s now banned from pedicures and we’re banned from that urgent care.

👓 Bill Jr.

Flunked his GED for the third time. Mystery solved: He couldn’t read the test. His Walmart glasses had been waiting for pickup since February.

📚 Mike

Got caught with a Playboy in his backpack. Earned a 5-day suspension. Two local priests kindly offered to “dispose” of the evidence. Suspiciously enthusiastic about it.

🎖 Sally

Made the world finals in baton twirling! Unfortunately, her final twirl knocked her out cold. Severe concussion. Now twirls from a seated position.

💍 Thomas/Thomasina

Our youngest transitioned this year — now known as Thomasina and married Melanie in June! We’re thrilled. Only odd part? 2024 DNA testing revealed… Thomasina is not biologically ours. So technically, we’re very accepting neighbors.

🐾 Bobo the Dog

For the 12th year in a row, got violently ill over the holidays. Possibly from eating 24 marshmallow Santas. No chocolate this year — just melted plastic.

And no, no one got into Harvard.

🎁 In Closing…

We may not have stock portfolios, gold medals, or viral cello prodigies, but we’ve got plenty of laughs (and ER co-pays). From our delightfully dysfunctional family to yours — have a warm, safe, and hopefully uneventful holiday.

Love,

Jinny and Bill

August 1, 2025