FFF (Family of Freeloading Freaks)

 

This is a true song about my mother in law, written from her perspective, an eccentric librarian who inevitably places all the eggs in the wrong basket.

This is her story. Last week she called my wife and I “freeloaders with no class” due to a silly argument with borrowing groceries and the like. And yes, everyday she comes over to our place and refills the milk jug, and that just isn’t too clear. Moved to the apartment building over a year ago, and majority of her possessions are still in storage. She has kept everything too, even grandmother’s underwear, which we assume will be made into a quilt. Read for yourself …

 

Live in a palace of newspaper, soggy within

Gothic piles of clutter given to friends

Polished inside but rotten on the skin

A place no tornado has ever been

 

Chorus:

We’re a family of freeloading freaks

We starve so a hundred cats can eat

Love summer sweat so we turn on the heat

Planting palm trees in the middle of the street

 

 

Sink full of dishes, eat on paper plates

Expired, moldy food but it really tastes great

Drink recycled milk from a two-year old jug

But don’t laugh, it scares away the bugs!

 

Rearranging boxes, living out of a suitcase

Using Tide and Cheer instead of toothpaste

Never find her things, future she can’t face

Maybe tomorrow, this isn’t a race

 

Lifelong friends all stay away

Daydream about the good old days

Escape the nightmare, buried in this place

Listen to all the barefoot, drunk, racing fans say …

 

(Chorus)

 

Bridge:

Bells will toll, and you’re growing old

Even the trains avoid, your black hole

 

Still consumed with guilt

Never made the underwear quilt

Might not ever have a used lamp shop

Favorite pastime is to cemetery hop

 

Civil wars are fought in your purse

Soon the planet is infected with your curse

There are boxes of cat shit to find

All the crap is making you blind

 

Great Danes ate the garden, no imaginary fence

Everyone else is to blame, no common sense

Borrow a car, drive it up a curb

Push my truck before I ever walk to work

 

Had a diarrhea spell, just across the street

But shortcuts are just to easy

Took 3 turns and the longer way around

Shared stinky steam and lost a couple pounds

 

Still in progress, written June 15, 2005