My Crazy Aunt Vivien

 May 23, 2024

   Many families I grew up with had at least one aunt who was a little off. She would say stuff that even the kids in the family would look at her and say, "Are you okay, Aunt Vivien?" In our family, we had a weird aunt but I can't use her real name because, well, my mother would kill me. True, my mom's been dead for quite a while, but still, you know what I mean. Anyway, "Aunt Vivien" was, what they called back in the day, a spinster, or more derogatorily, an "Old Maid."

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My Aunt Vivien

   Here is a typical encounter I vividly remember my dad having with Aunt Vivien in about 1956:

 "Someday the Boy Scouts are going to have to change their name."

   "Pray tell, why is that?"

  "Too much tent sex."

   "Oh, Aunt Vivien, that is crazy talk. Why, it's even crazier than the thing you said the last time you were here."

   "Well, what in the Sam Hill did I say the last time I was here?"

   "You said that someday Republicans will side with Russia. That's beyond the pale, Vivien!"

   "Mark my words. It's coming like a freight train."

—Aunt Vivien