Our hero comes from a family of semi-related people who do stupid things.

My grandfather is probably the worst of the lot. He's not a blood relation, but the husband of my grandmother. They married about ten years ago. After meeting Frank, we enthusiastically adopted him into the fold. He's a sweet guy, an amazing cook, and somehow able to cope with my grandmother's numerous weirdnesses that I can only speculate stem from the same strange environmental factors which gave my late grandfather (her first husband) colon cancer at the age of fifty-six.

I last saw Frank when he and my mother's mother came to town for my sister's high school graduation. My sisters are able to use the tiniest slivers of soap for weeks on end, but Frank (whose eyesight is not great) overlooked their sliver and assumed there was no soap. The poor man got out of the shower and dripped his way to the downstairs bathroom, where he seized upon a bar of shrink-wrapped hand soap my mother kept on the sink for appearances only. He then proceeded to attempt to wash himself with the still plastic-wrapped band soap bar.

One of my mother's favorite stories about Frank is probably not totally fair to Frank in re-telling. He had indigestion. My mother had her cure-all, Tums antacid chewable calcium discs about an inch in diameter, readily available. (So many stomach viruses my mother has valiantly attempted to combat with Tums. So many failures.) Frank went into the bathroom to take the Tums and came out spluttering.

"Frank," said my mother. "Are you okay?"

Frank rubbed his red, watery eyes. He wheezed. "Those Tums were a little hard to swallow," he explained.

As odd as Frank can be, he's no match for his wife. My grandmother is truly an strange duck. She called my mother to ask what colors I was planning on using in my freshman-year dorm room. She wanted to make me an afghan. When my mother told her red and purple, she replied, "Well, I've already bought green and pink, so I'm just going to use those." Later that same academic year, she mailed me a box of socks inscribed with "Princess" and embroidered cats she'd bought years earlier and never worn.

And now I've determined to carry on family tradition. While two-beer-dancing to the new Girl Talk album at a friend's party Saturday before last, I rolled awkwardly on my left foot and broke my fifth metatarsal.

Stupid.