There's No Place Like Home

Thank God.

Scene 1: I run up behind my least skinny sister, J, and grab her and tickle her belly. E is another of my sisters.
J: "Hahaha....don't grab that!"
Me: "Don't grab what?!?"
J: "My stomach. E calls it my criminal."
Me: "Your criminal?"
J: "Yeah. She said it's my criminal cause it makes me do bad things. Like eat ice cream for lunch."

Scene 2: I'm in one of my sisters' bedrooms. M and J (my two youngest sisters) are sitting on the bed talking to me. And then I notice the stuffed animal over the curtain rod.
Me: "What is that?"
J: "A koala."
Me: "Where's the rest of it?"
J: "Gone."
Me: "You decapitated the koala?!??"
M: "We didn't decapitate it! We just cut off its body."

Scene 3: My parents have an in-ground pool. I am in a hammock studying for the stupid MCAT while my youngest sister M swims in the pool. J and E are about to get in the pool. M is just swimming around when all of a sudden she starts screaming and makes a beeline for the ladder.
Me: "What's the matter?!?"
M: "There's a rat in the pool!!!"
Me: "Is it dead?"
M: "No! It's in the strainer! I can see it standing there moving!"
J: "Give me something to hit it with."
Me: "NO! Girls stay away from it!! Go get Dad."
M: "Let me just take the lid off the strainer so I can see him."
Me: "NO! Get Dad NOW!"
Trust me, this tone was necessary. These are the same children that called me a year ago and said they just got a new pet. When I enquired as to the animal species, they replied that it was a possum. That they trapped. On our patio. When I asked if my parents knew, they replied that they weren't home. My sisters trapped a wild possum in a dog carrier and expected to keep it. You have to watch them. They have no fear. Not even rational fear. Psychos.
So, E goes to get Dad. Mom starts screaming at us out the window.
Mom: "Go get a shovel! Then let him climb onto it and fling him into the yard."
Me: "Mom, what if it climbs up the handle and bites someone...or if we don't fling it far enough...or if you do fling it and he's out loose in our yard?"
Mom: "Just use the shovel!"
Dad: "M, go get me the BB gun."
Mom: "USE THE SHOVEL!"
Me: "Awesome."
So M goes for the BB gun, my 11 year old sister comes back wielding a BB gun and asks to be allowed to shoot. Dad tells her no and proceeds to line up his shot from the other side of the pool into this litle pocket across the way. We're standing there watching him take shot after shot. The girls are confirming hits. J leans over to me.
J: "We're watching Dad shoot a rat with a BB gun."
Me: "Yeah. I know."
J: "This is the most redneck thing we've ever done."
Me: "Yup."
So Dad shot him to death. The rat ended up looking like he came out on the wrong end of a Godfather movie. Dad chunked him out in the woods. I went back to studying. And 5 minutes later J and M got back in the pool.

Sick.