June 4
 
 

 
 
 
 

On Sunday, Nick and I went to a car show at a nearby state park.  It was called "British by the Sea" or somesuch thing.  I like car shows,  I like looking at cars.  I like pondering them.  I don't at all care to see them race, but if they're parked, I'm all over it.  Anyhow, we went to this car show because Nick, in part, wanted to show (and show off, of course) his new car, and hang out with the people who had Minis and MGs and..uhh...other fancypants British cars.  Driving in the Mini is somewhat like being the leader of a parade, because whereas it's not tiny tiny the way the old Minis were, it's still small and it's very unsual.  Think about it.  How many have YOU seen driving around?  People honk and wave.  Kids point and freak out.  My GTI is spiffy and fast, but it definitely blends into the background, which is okay with me.  I don't necessarily want to EXPLAIN my car as I'm getting gas or stopping to buy milk.

We arrived at the park and registered and parked and unpacked our stuff.  We wandered around and looked at the cars (Me: "Ooh,that one's cool, it's a hatchback! And it's PURPLE!!"  Nick:  "That one has got a split VCAM turbo nitro prop with CTA subhemy flabgoobulars!") and talked to the other new Mini people (there were three).  When that was all done, I pulled out the books I'd brought, took off my shoes, and sat down in a beach chair.  I am not ashamed to admit (well, okay, maybe only a little ashamed...)  that I've been re-reading the whole "Flowers in the Attic" series.  If you are a woman, and you are about my age, you definitely know the books I mean, so it's useless to pretend you don't.  If you're a guy, or you're a liar, here's a synopsis:

A perfect, blond family are torn apart when the father dies in a car wreck on the night of his birthday.  The mother, who we learn comes from A LOT OF MONEY, decides that the only way she can keep her family from being tossed out on the street (because the perfect family are not rich, just comfortable, and it turns out that the mother has yet to learn the value of a hard earned dollar, the silly thing) is to pack up the four kids (all blond and perfect, of course) and take them to her EXTREMELY RICH parent's house in Virginia (I think?).  The house has about 40 rooms and servants and it's beautiful and the kids are all happy that they're going to be so rich and pampered.  The problem is quickly discovered, however.  The kid's mother and father are (or were, since the father's dead now) related.  The father was the mother's half uncle.  Eww.

It turns out that the Mother's Mother and Father have never forgiven her (heh, the mother) for committing this SIN AGAINST GOD, and she was cast out of the house as soon as she'd married.  They told her that the children were "THE DEVIL'S SPAWN" (a common phrase throughout the book, get used to it), and that they deserved to have horned, mutant freak children becacuse the neice and uncle had had sex.  The kids, are perfect, much to the great annoyance of the Mother's Mother and Father (the kid's GRANDPARENTS.  Are you follwing me, here? Heh.)  So, they arrive in the dead of night, which the kids (Chris, Cathy, Cory and Carrie, duh) don't quite understand.  They walk like 40 miles from the train station to the house (again, kids don't get it, if they're so rich, why are they sneaking in?).  The Grandmother meets the family at the door and it's not a big happy reunion.  It turns out that the grandfather is on his death bed, and the kid's mother is trying to figure out a way to win back his favor, so that she can tell him she's got kids and be reincluded in his will.  Right.  The Grandmother is horrible, and the plan is this:  The four kids will be locked up in the attic, so that no one will know that they're there.  They are NEVER ALLOWED to go outside, and there's a whole nasty list of stuff they can't do.  She's god obsessed, and also a closeted pervert, so tells them that they aren't allowed to even LOOK at members of the opposite sex, i.e., the older brother and sister aren't supposed to ever make eye contact, because it's pervy and wrong and that god would PUNISH THEM for their wicked and evil thoughts.

Man, this story is complicated.  I'll press on.

They get this list of things they can and can not do, which is really, they're not allowed to do anything, ever.  The mother promises that they will ONLY BE THERE FOR A DAY or two, a week at best, and that everything will be fine, that they'll be brought food once a day, and they had to make it last, and that she'd come to visit once a day, too.

Okay, well, it doesn't work out that way, of course.  They're locked up there for years, and all kinds of shitty things happen, including, beatings by the Grandmother for being UNHOLY or whatever, tar in hair, poisoned donuts, no sun, stunted growth of kids who are never allowed to get out to see the light of day, and a dead kid.  In all of these years, they start learning more and more about their mother, and they realize that she is not, in fact, trying AT ALL to get them out of the attic.  This is cemented when they sneak out of their room into the mother's room and find that she's GONE, all of her stuff, her new husband, the whole thing.  Gone.  Fortunately, they'd been stealing money for a few months, and they decide that they're going to make a break for it and run like hell, carrying the memory of their dead brother with them for always.

Oh, yeah.  What I forgot to mention is that while they were locked up, the older brother and sister (The kids were two young twins, one of whom died, and the older brother and sister, who were about 4 years apart) started maturing sexually, and, true to the grandmother's nasty predictions, they FUCKED.  Oh, sure they were a little guilty about it, but still, it happened.  The sister gets all freaked out (because, I repeat:  SHE FUCKED HER BROTHER!) and the brother is all "This won't happen again, I'm sorry! I'm so sorry!"  but, at the same time, he says  "I will never love another woman! EVER!! It's you, my sister!  You'll always be mine!"

The story ends with them hopping a train (a bus?) and heading south to become trapeeze artists.
 

So, there I was, sitting in my chair, reading the THIRD book in the 4 book series, but I'm embarrassed about it, so I'm trying to keep the cover down.  People are coming over and asking question about the car, and since it's not my car, I'm trying to be helpful and friendly, but really, I don't know a whole lot.  A family appear in front of me, mom, dad, teenaged boy and a girl, who seems to be about 11.  They are talking to Nick about the car, and I'm smiling and trying to be helpful and nice, but I am riveted by the 11 year old girl.

She is wearing thin sweatpants of some sort, a sparkly shirt, a bandanna on her head.  She is average looking, and I wouldn't have even paid her any mind at all, if not for the fact that she was DIGGING AT HER CROTCH.  I understand, both for men and women, that the need sometimes arises.  Perhaps your underwear are out of alignment.  Maybe, if you're a guy, the seam is smashing your balls.  Whatever.  This little girl was, quite unfortunately, right at my eye level, because I was sitting in the beach chair, and there she was, digging away.  Digging, rubbing, and then, the ultimate prize:  SNIFFING HER FINGERS.  Imagine, if you will:  Rub, rub, dig dig digdig, SNIFFF!! SNIFF!!!! DEEP SNIFF!!! RUB!!! RUB!!! DIGDIGDIG!! SNIFFFFFFFFFFFF!!

Her parents were asking Nick a question, an ENDLESS question, and all the while, this little girl was SNIFF!! RUB!!! DIG DIG!! SNIFFFFF!! The sniffing part was done with great gusto and relish.  She'd first sniff her palm, then her fingers all together.  Then, each finger seperately, then the rub.  Finally, after at least 3 minutes, they all walked away, the girl tugging at her sweatpants and sniffing.

Several hours later, I saw them again.  The girl had changed into shorts.  Heh.  Heh, heh.  Easier access, I guess.
 

I had a reason for giving you the plotline to Flowers in the Attic.  Believe it or not--there was a point.  The point is, I guess, for the people who've read the book before.  I read them all when I was about 11 (I'd like to hope that I wasn't sniffing my fingers and grabbing my crotch, but I wouldn't swear to it), and the whole freaky incest thing didn't bother me, really.  An even quicker rundown of the three books after FITA is that they get out of the house, they are taken in by a nice doctor, the older girl becomes a ballet dancer, the brother a doctor, the youngest daughter just kind of floats around, but she's a freak because all of the years in the attic stunted her growth so she's got a tiny little body and a giant head (true, I am not making that up.)  The brother is still in love with the sister, and he won't date or mess around or anything, because he's committed his life to beying with HER and only HER.  The ballet dancing sister seduces the doctor, then marries a horrible ballet dancer she doesn't love.  He gets into an accident, then he kills himself.  Then she marries the doctor.  The doctor dies.  She hunts down her mother and for revenge, seduces the mother's new (well, by this time not so new) husband.  She gets pregnant, and finally convinces everyone that she is who she says she is, the mother locked us in the attic, blah blah blah.  She gets revenge on the mean old grandmother, who is, by this time, bed bound, by whipping the shit out of her and pouring wax in her hair.  The whole book ends with the house burning down, the guy she seduced dies trying to get the horrible whipped grandmother out of the house.

Last explanation, I swear.  The whole series ends with the brother and sister moving away.  She has two kids, from two different people (the dead ballet guy, and the mother's husband).  The brother and sister pretend they're married, and that's how they live their lives.  Brother and Sister, husband and wife.  The whole thing gets found out in Book 4, and there's a lot of annoying shit with the adult children that I won't get into, because if you don't want to go out and read these fucked up books by now, there is no convincing you.

So, when I was 11, this wasn't weird.  It didn't send any red "eww!" flags  up in my head.  It was sweet and romantic, the way finding the one true love of your life is, and overcoming whatever fate throws in your way to get there with them.  But now, eww.  A four book series about a brother and sister who screw because they were locked in an attic.  Somehow, I expect you tie this in to the little girl sniffing her fingers.  I can't see how, but there's got to be a correlation.
 
 

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In case you're wondering,  this was my favorite car at the show: