I Am Fuller McAllister, Alleged Bed-Wetter
/Happy Holidays. This is the annual reminder that I am now a Grown-Ass Man and, not only do I not need reminders at every friendly fete to go easy on the fluids, but I am here to clear my name as an alleged bed-wetter.
Like all caboose babies in a large fold like the McAllisters, I was the butt of every joke. My cousin Buzz? The obvious source of my angst. He was a stuffed sausage full of hormones, with an ill-advised haircut for the first 32 years of his life. (No one keeps a tarantula as a pet who is not deeply insecure.) The only time he wasn’t wielding insults at me was when he was shoving his piehole full of cheese pizza.
My cousin Kevin was not much better, though I know he is still working through the PTSD of being abandoned two Christmases in a row by his parents. He may have first spread the rumor that I wet the bed, but my dude was just Going Through It. His only “friends” were a septuagenarian bachelor and a pigeon lady. His whole life was a cry (::slaps hands on cheeks:: AHHH!) for help.
Indeed, to merely survive as a McAllister was a daily struggle. “But Fuller!” you may be saying, “Look at all that economic security your family had! And all that togetherness!” To which I will remind you that the early 90s were still the wild, wild west of white privilege. So what if I did whiz the mattress once in a blue moon? Do you think perhaps it was because of a slightly insecure attachment to the “adults” who always appeared to be asleep at the wheel? Explain to me how they never faced charges of frequent criminal negligence of minors.
You want to talk about “Les Incompétents”?! Look no further than my own parents, Frank and Leslie: the epitome of learned helplessness. Big Frank was a tightwad who never paid anything forward but tone deafness. And ol’ Les may have forbidden us from drinking cola, except on special occasions, but this was only to enable Big Frank’s addiction to the syrupy goodness he would guzzle in the garage, crushing cans of Coke and Pepsi — with a large rum chaser. No wonder he was always a crank. Who calls children “little jerks” to their faces? Especially at a big family gathering? It is only in the fullness of time that I’ve realized I am the product of a functional alcoholic and a codependent doormat.
photo courtesy 20th Century Studios
For this reason, it feels extra cruel that everyone is still telling me to “Go Easy on the Pepsi” and ribbing me with reminders that the “rubber sheets are already packed.” I am still processing the cluster of my childhood in which I was inexplicably dressed each day like an academic research librarian. This year, I am not your Tiny Tim. I’m steering clear of your spiked egg nog. I will not be disappointed at all if I did, in fact, make my family disappear.
