Incidents during my vacation with my brother and parents

• I explained to Joel the KEY to understanding Dickens - He's writing jokes!
• Drowning would be a pretty stressful way to die
• My friend Heather had made a comment on my brother's blog. Later that night she called me using a calling card which showed up on my cell phone's caller ID as being 404-xxx-xxxx. An hour later, my brother got a call from the same number and I thought "How did Heather get Joel's cell phone number?" which would have been pretty creepy. It turned out to be someone else, though, a friend of my brother's. However, this friend lived in New York and Heather lives in Texas unless one of them is lying about their location which is a pretty creepy idea. It turns out that they were just using calling cards from the same company rather than engaging in some elaborate deception. Darn!
• My parent's friend Fey called my brother a "chicken shit" because he wouldn't try the shell fish casserole
• Although the movie Happiness is quite good, much like The Passion of the Christ I'd have to think anyone who watches it twice is something of a masochist
• After my brother and I established this, I went on to say "If you don't believe in the resurrection of Christ, it must be the most depressing movie ever."
• Joel thought I was talking about Happiness.
• Oddly enough, it occurred to me that the same statement applied. I mean, if you really believed that there were as many sick weirdos as there are in Happiness and you don't believe in some kind of afterlife, then this world is pretty f-ing depressing. (Yes, I suppressed the curse word I intended on using. So sue me!)
• There is nothing so disturbing as having a conversation with your brother and mom about furries except perhaps:
• The fact that the conversation never seems to end!
• That my brother used the line "Richard and I know a whole lot about sexual deviance" (SHEESH! This is my mom your talking to! Oh, wait, she's your mom, too)
• The whole family watch Bride of Chucky. I think I was the only one who found it amusing. Oddly enough, my mom did like Ginger Snaps but her major criticism was that it was scary. Some people just don't get horror movies.
• During a trip with my mom and pop to Barnes and Noble, my mom said "I wish I was an intellectual" to which I responded she could be. However, she said "I don't have any interest in history or Abraham Heschel". I gave into the cheap shot and said "Perhaps you could be the intellectual of Mad Libs". I'm sorry, Mom! I couldn't help it! It was just too easy...
• I discovered that my dad has never heard of the "5 Second Rule"