Crazy Aunt Nora
Oh Crazy Aunt Nora!
I was at my uncle’s funeral and it would have been a very somber event, as funerals tend to be, if it weren’t for Crazy Aunt Nora.
Eritrean funerals tend to get big, so big that the bereaved often set up a tent outside their house for the mourners. Yep, pretty big.
I was seated alone (I lost my mom somewhere in the commotion) when someone greeted me. The woman who was seated opposite me widened her eyes in surprise.
“Elsa, is that you? Is that really you? It’s me, your Aunt Nora” She asked. I didn’t recognize her at first. I guess she could see the hesitation in my face because she started freaking LAMENTING in a very loud voice how horrible it was to be forgotten by someone ‘she had raised’. Erm, okay. At this point, everybody’s eyes were focused on us. To make things even more embarrassing, she shared a childhood story of mine VERY LOUDLY.
Apparently, as a kid I liked sitting on the floor and playing with myself. She was at our house one day along with other guests when I happened to look up her skirt.
“Auntie doesn’t have panties! Auntie doesn’t have panties!” I yelled pointing at her. All the guests started laughing at her. To make things worse, I was engulfed in pity because I thought she couldn’t afford underwear. I ran and dragged my mother to the living room from the kitchen. Crying, I explained the situation to my mother.
“Auntie doesn’t have panties so you must give her some of yours.” I informed my mother. Everybody laughed except my mother, whose face had gone red. From that day on, every time Aunt Nora visited our home, I would call my mother by yelling “Auntie without the panties is here!” And that, ladies and gentlemen, is how Aunt Nora became the Auntie without the panties. However, after a while she stopped coming to our house (understandably) and I had forgotten about her.
Out of all the stories in the world, my aunt decided to share this story at a funeral. The entire tent was laughing hysterically while I was dying out of embarrassment. But oh no, it doesn’t stop here! After the laughing finally settled down, one brave soul made the mistake of asking “Wait, why weren’t you wearing underwear in the first place?”
At this point, Aunt Nora matter-of-factly announced “Oh, I hate wearing panties. In fact, I’m not wearing any now!” Does it get worse? Oh yes! She decided to demonstrate and she lifted her dress for the world to see. Unfortunately, I didn’t turn away soon enough to avoid looking at her grey pubes and her… let me stop myself here. The strangest thing is that nobody seemed to find such behavior weird. Aunt Nora even started a conversation with the person next to her…with her dress still up in the air.
As my mom and I finally were driving home, I told her the story since she had missed it all. She didn’t even seemed surprised. She just rolled her eyes and said “ Oh Crazy Aunt Nora!”