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It’s been a while since I wrote a fat janet story. Here’s one I like to call “The mashed potato incident”.

This happened after I’d moved out of Dad’s place. Matt had moved in for a short while, and then he also moved out. So with both of us out of there, we’d come by on occasion and have dinner with Dad so he wouldn’t get nutzo. Also we liked to let him know we were still keeping our eye on him so he wouldn’t drink. Because I was expecting a relapse. I know that if I had to live with fat janet, I’d be in the bottle every fucking second.

Anyway, dinner with dad was always the same. Steak, with a can of LeSuer (sp) peas seasoned with worcestershire sauce, butter, salt and pepper, and of course, mashed potatoes. It’s a good meal, but funny…I haven’t eaten it since he died. I digress…Usually a meal at Dad’s was a three person affair. Dad, Fat Janet, and either myself or Matt. Today it was all four of us, so the seating arrangment was a little cramped. Fat Janet was at the end of the table. Matt and I were seated across from each other, and Dad was to matt’s immediate left. Dinner was served.

Watching Fat Janet eat was interesting. She lived to eat. She was a little off, as I’ve previously discussed, and the only thing she could even talk about was food, without repeating everything everyone else said like the world’s fattest parrot. So when it was mealtime, she dug in with mucho gusto. She ate with a purpose…she didn’t just wolf the food down haphazardly. She methodically destroyed it. If you wanted to eat with her, you had to learn to block it out and just go about your business.

This is what Matt and I were trying to do. We were eating our meal and chit chatting with Dad (Fat Janet didn’t talk at the table. She was too busy). We were trying to ignore the sights, and especially the sounds, that she was producing, but it wasn’t working very well. Finally it came to a head….Fat Janet, in mid fork-load, let out this disgusting belch. I swear chunks of food flew out of her mouth onto her plate. I froze…Matt had a mouthful of mashed potatoes. At this moment, time stood still.

I thought to myself, clear as day, that if I made eye contact with my brother, that we would bust out laughing. I knew that he had a mouthful of food. But I couldn’t help it. I looked up. He must have been thinking the same thing. As soon as we looked at each other, here’s what happened:

Matt lost it. He didn’t want to spray the table with mashed potatoes so he turned his head. Unfortunately, he turned to face Dad, and spewed potatoes all over Dad’s face. Dad said “God Damnit!” and almost before the potatoes hit his face, Matt was up out of his chair. He took his napkin and was trying to clean dad’s face and glasses, the whole time saying “this is funny! this is funny! you have to see the humor here!” to keep dad from exploding. I can’t remember if I was laughing or holding my breath to see what dad would do (when we were little, laughter at the dinner table would get us in huge trouble).

When it was over and Dad was cleaned up (it was a lot of mashed potatoes), we resumed the meal, but once again, Fat Janet in all her weirdness, had left a mark on us.