The True History of England's Favorite Colony, as I heard it

Trigger: written in the fat thumb grammar to avoid data miners over-borrowing any more labor.

Grandpa was dragged out by his neck and forced to sign his property away. The crows thronged hard and threw their gnatty green tomatoes, their wooden shear sticks fanning about in the hazey morning. It was like a thunder strike as this tassled leash went around his neck and someone slapped a horse on the hind and the cobblestones went bumpety bumpety. 

It’s rough to have this awesome guy, this King of royal blood in your line, but you can’t brag and tell anyone about it. They let the BBC haul him up from an unmarked grave under a parking lot and I tell my kids to get closer to the television screen because we might just get seconds to see the remains of his face, I want to see if Scarlett has grandpa’s nose or he might have her large forehead that looks like a wall, like a forest burned all over in one patch before they put it out with CO2 grenades and then it’s just a patch. 

We wait with baited breathing. Michelle gets some popcorn and I yell “Hurry up ! It’s the unboxing! Hurry, screw the candied chocolate nutes, forget about the popcorn oils that are gonna get on the couch. IT”S GRANDPA! HURRY!” 

She doesn’t care because her grandparents were all cute little victims and she was named after teh Chieftain of Monaghan County before the Earls took Flight to Paris. She doesn’t have to worry about Disney making her grandparents into selfish lions with heavy rings on their fingers, there’s not the threat of Robin of Loxsely coming back to take all the credit about making the UK sexy. (John Knox maybe but definitely not Robin Hood). In fact, the whole of London might not be so uppity if Grandpa didn’t require strict grammar edification and tell all them peasants “You’re better than that!”

He actually had to send back the Magna Carta which was just called Santa's Wish List because they misspelled half the words and he couldn’t sign anything that wasn’t exactly legal. 

Did you know that King John was a fabulous accountant? The whole of the Certified Accountant Community deserves their reckoning and should probably protest that America doesn’t have a day for accountants. They could call it J-Day because some people might be divided over the celebration (but we’ll know what they mean) and this is the guy who totally inistituted modern taxation, albeit they used to check the ladies for spoilage down there, he is the inpetous for the Peasant’s Revolution which started as a simple Revolt, the reason that Joan (not from) Arche is even noted because she stole half her moves from David in the bible. Without KJ I don’t think we would even have an America or Canada, definitely not American Samoa, the people in California would all be speaking Spanish and Napoleon wouldn’t have sold us Coors Beer, Memphis would have lost its manners (oops. Too late), Elvis would have bought a house in Chatanooga, the fishermen in Maine… Main… Well that’s a French House, screw Main … But “what would Della Wear” without the House of Warr, that bespangled Thomas West whose brother sued 8 year old orphans after he married the widow of the Virginia Governor. I mean the legacy of Grandpa is over-grinding, ridiculously important and yet people give all their fanmail to Richard, the brother. 

Don’t trust a Richard, or even a Charles. They are often beheaded by their betters. 

Now back to Grandpa, it is true, that he had to be very inventive and probably whispered the beginnings to the Children’s Crusade because he honestly believed eight, nine, ten years old from continental Europe could go over and hug to death the enemies of the state. If they lost? Maybe sold into a little Tunisian Slavery by the nice people of Genoa? Then that would serve a generation well because there was less porridge to share, and consider that the Rus are the only ones who told everyone to get back to being serfs after the Great Black Death. 

Nah! Grandpa was like an avenging angel, part wingy and part useful for humanity, but everyone gives the thanks to Robin who is named after a bird with ugly eggs. “Oh Robin, you’re so sexy.” Dudes like Aerol Flynn get up there with their tiny poker swords and pretend that Grandpa is too fat to even slice his own bread. They invented the English Long Bow because grandpa told them to save some money. 

So in this case, Robin would be justifiably obliged to remember whence he came from, and Maid Merriam was not the sister of Moses, she was actually Grandpa’s favorite concubine (that’s a woman who speaks 7 languages) and the Hood was always getting in between their language interpretations because Grandpa thought it would be great to letter the royal guide in Mecca a direct letter. Maybe they could take Richard back? He was becoming a little twit because all of his stuff was packed away while we he went out crusading. 

The story goes on abou the Sherriff of Notingham, the Sherwinn forest and why Earl Scropes married the lady of Greystoke but wouldn’t take on that beautiful name. Everyone was related back then and this is why the beautiful dandelion people of West Virginia keep the royal blood close to the hills and don’t come down their mountains. 

The End. 

Scarlett looks at me and says, “So we are blah?” 

Wtf? Blah? “Funny you should mention that, honey, we do have some people from the House of Bloise.” 

Scarlett can’t stand it because she wants to be something cool, like Vietmese. Everything in our town is now trendy and hard to pronounce, the restaurants serve noodles which look like a snake had a sea through baby snake and someone extruded it long and boiled it in clam sauce. 

“How comes we aren’t descended from slaves?” 

I look at her mother and nod that she should educate the girl on Irish Slaves. It was really a thing  before the dutch of 1630. (Consider how Patrick the Scottish Roman ever got to Ireland? He was a slave). 

Scarlett says she’s not even going to try to build her family tree for school unless we can find some more interesting characters. This littel girls wants some parts southeast Asian, she loves MANGA and that does not mean Make America Not Great Again but appears to be about cartoon kids with super powers. 

I start by calling my dad, who still lives while the heart medication is warm. He never goes outside without an aspirin between his knees but loves to talk about family behind their backs. 

“Nah son. I’m adopted, didn’t I tell you?” 

“So who gave us our family name?” 

“Your mom and I were naked with chianti one night, they sued to have these four foot long bottles and you could put a candle in the top…” 

So gross. 

“She whispers into my ear and says, ‘Mike? What do you want to call our baby.” 

“You said I was named after your uncle!”

“Yeah sure, but we didn’t have a last name for you and the room was spinning, chianti, I can’t make this up. Since you were coming out we decided to get all married and change our names together. So we became the Gorounds. Kinda cool. Right?” 

Mom says I was born because she went off diet pills and now says he invented our surname while he was stoned. I slowly walk back to my daughter and don’t know what to tell her. 

Michelle looks all cocky because she found a piece of paper that says she’s real indian. Her mom was full of crap about Cherokee but the Choctaw listing on the Dahl’s Rolls is real. 

“Dad? Can you beat that? Mom says her side is Native and that your side have been invading her people for years.” 

I sit down. 

Don’t even know what to say anymore. My people are victimizers but my dad’s side has to all be scratched out. 

It doesn’t get any better after I get to the library and find out that Dad’s people who he knows about were all abusers, his uncle Thomas Jefferson actually threw sex parties with slaves and pretended that they would be freed if they won. That’s why we got so many damn Tommys in the family because we are vultures and I’m all grossed out. 

I call back my dad quickly, it goes to voicemail, I have to use the special code we have in text in case one of us gets stuck on the toilet or has a heart condition or needs to get drunk. I type: 9-1-1-

He calls me back immediately. 

“Dad, are you saying we don’t have a Chinese Grandpa and that’s why I cook sweet Foi so good?” 

“You don’t have a Chinese Grandpa.” 

I slam the phone down and kick its ugly phone body all over the floor, the remote vacuum wakes up and warns that it will call the government if I harm another one of its robot buddies. There is nothing else to do but sob. 

(There might be some hiccuping because it was one of those Noah Had an Ark kinda cries.)

My women came in and I had to turn my back because even bastardized sons should cry in private or the women give them the beat down. They won’t go away but take flowers out of the vases and dangle them over my shoulder like i’m a sissy. 

“What’s wrong Daddy, did you have a bad day?” 

(Yes, Honey. A very very bad day.)

(I am nameless and by extension you are going to have to take your mother’s maiden name, which will really piss off the banks, but we’ll get through this somehow.)

I see the Big G on the refrigerator though my salty eyes and want to lunge forward and rip Scarlett’s kindergarten prideful art off the place where we eat groceries. It is a holy place and should not be defiled by a fake identity. 

Michelle comes around my backside and let’s her legs dangle off the counter, bragging with her calves that her people were so desirable that every nation on the Earth has an Irish Day, even the people in Mali who might just be using it overcome their no-drinking overlords. I had no day. 

“Umm… You want some soup?”

Her type of Irish only cook soup and make sandwich. You can try to buy her helper groceries (Hamburger Helper, microwave frozen helper) but they don’t help. She says her people can eat anything but I heard the Great Famine happened because the only two cooks in Ireland moved to New York. 

My face burns. “Move out of the way, I’ll cook. “ I don’t even know what kind of cuisine I am genetically preprogrammed to create, I just put hard vegetables in the pot, stir in some spices with no names but lean over the shelf to me. There are butters which want to be butters. Morsels of brisket which mew ‘please eat me’ from the refer but I play no favorites and can make hamhocks or just stewed tomatoes. I always call these creations the internation fame of goulash but had never stopped to consider why Michelle couldn’t even boil water without a thermometer. 

“Hey Scar… step over here.” 

The food is immediately boiling. I don’t expect splash back and to have to bring my little miss to the hospital to get a whirlpool to reduce her third degree burn. “Step closer.” 

She complies because she loves her daddy. I want her to put any random thing into my goulash to prove that she is mine (I don’t trust DNA test when they are out of my sight). She marches her little legs right over to the pantry and picks out three cans missing labels. It is very scary because she could burn herself or foul the meal. Michelle scoots over on the counter because there are somethings to be added to pots which might explode. 

“Ok honey,k as long as you are sure.” 

Scarlett doesn’t think twice but pops the tops and throws in the contents to the boiling goulash. She sets out gravy boats to serve, not bowls or plates of lettuce but gravy boats. I did not recall buying so many gravy boats. She ladels the concoction down to our gravy boats and hands us chopsticks and says we are to sip from the corners as needed. “Just like the Japanese.” 

Michelle nod to eachother and both look at the phone number for poison control taped over the large “G” on the refrigerator. We take down the hatch and wait for the belly to burn or the first signs of bulicocis. 

All is well. 

“Did you like my soup? “ Scarlett grins. Michelle and i head bang and say together, “That was pretty good honey.” 

She smiles and says “Taht will be two dollars please,” Just like King John. 

I am so proud and I know she is mine. I won’t be calling I.C.E. on Michelle’s family for several days going forward.