My Aunt Mickey

Hi y'all. Hotfessional here - filling in for Sunshine while she's out having fun and I'm trapped in ugly, cloudy, cold and snowy Michigan dreaming that I'll wake up and find myself on a beach.

Since that's not going to happen and I promised Sunshine I'd take care of things for her while she was away, let me tell you about my Aunt Mickey.

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I love my Aunt Mickey - she's a classic beauty - dark eyes, fair complexion, the deepest brown hair with true black undertones. Perfect upturned nose with a spattering of freckles, tiny waist. Shortman told me one time that he was going to marry her (okay, so he was 4 at the time and probably only focused on her ginormous chest, but still...) - absolutely gorgeous.

She's also a blast, and one of the funniest people I've ever met.

When I was younger, she used to stop by our house quite frequently while my Dad was at work. Dad was a cop for 32 years and worked shifts that changed every month. The months that he was on afternoons? Mickey was there at 3 pm with Mom - as much for moral support I think (being married to a cop is tough!) as to have a drinking buddy. When he worked Midnights, she'd show up as Dad was getting ready - generally around 9 p.m.

I've never seen my mom drunk - so either her tolerance is far and above her sister's - or she just didn't drink as much as Mickey. But either way, there were many a morning when I'd get up for school, and Mickey would be asleep on our couch.

She'd get up, fix us breakfast, and then leave. Her trail of Tareyton cigarette smoke trailing behind her.

Mickey was also deathly afraid of cats. A fear caused, she said, by a cat sitting on her face when she was a baby, "sucking her breath out." If poor little Sinbad walked past when she didn't expect it, she'd grab the arm closest to her and shriek at the top of her lungs. Often, her nails would leave marks - so I learned early to keep him out of sight when she was around. He was usually banished to the basement, and yet in the inimitable way that cats have, would stalk her when she walked in the door. (Y'know how cats are seemingly attracted to the one person in the room who doesn't care about them in the least? Yep. That's how it went.)

One Christmas season, my parents and Mickey and her latest boyfriend (there was a string of them, unsurprisingly) went out to a party and we were left home with a babysitter. The Charlie Brown Christmas Special was on, and the original plan was that we were going to decorate the tree while they were gone. My dad had strung the lights earlier, but there was one string that had gone out.

They worked fine when he tested them. Worked fine when he put them on the tree. But after he got the rest of the strings on, this one section went out. Poof.

We were instructed to NOT decorate until that got fixed. Which wouldn't be until the adults woke up the next morning sometime. Knowing they were going out with Mickey, we didn't hold out much hope for the decorations to be on before dinner the next day. Or maybe a week from Wednesday. (Hangovers can be such a bear.)

Although we were in bed at the babysitter approved time of 10 o'clock that night, the partiers coming home at 1 jarred us out of our sugar-plum dreams. My brother and I snuck out into the hallway to watch the fun. My baby sister must have stayed asleep - I don't think we could have gotten her out of her crib without alerting everyone of our presence.

Mom and Mickey went into the kitchen to fix everyone a "nightcap". Dad and the Date-du-jour sat down in the living room near the sad tree with the string of lights out. Dad on the couch - D-d-j on the recliner.

The ladies finished their creations and were on their way back to join their men (and I knew at this point how much "fun" they'd had at the party, because they walked right past the hallway where little brother and I were hiding and never saw us) . Mom sat next to Dad on the couch. Mickey was just ready to perch herself delicately on the arm of the recliner. I can see her poised - drink in one hand, Tareyton in the other - and her date looking toward the kitchen with a grin on his face.

Sinbad hadn't been locked in the basement. Sinbad heard Mickey's voice. Sinbad leapt onto Date-du-jour's lap at the same time Mickey's butt hit the arm of the recliner.

Without her hands free, Mickey did what any self-respecting cat-a-phobe would do. Hurled herself as far away as she possibly could as quickly as possible. Directly into the Christmas tree. Her screech sent Sinbad in the other direction and woke my sister. Dad and D-d-j were helping Mickey out of the tree as my Mom stepped into the hallway to quiet the baby.

Of course, my brother and I were far too shocked by the scene we'd just witnessed to move an inch and so we were discovered for the spies that we were.

I was told to go find the cat and take him downstairs. At that point, of course, my parents - being the intelligent people they are, knew that we'd be awake for a while and so let us come out into the living room to tell Mickey good night. (She was still picking pieces of tree out of her hair.)

---- My brother was the first to notice that the string of lights had miraculously come back on - thanks to Mickey and the Cat. ----

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