Congratulations on Acquiring a Tidy Fortune!

You’ll be seated in front of the lawyer’s desk along with the rest of your family. It’ll be the first time you’ve all been together in years.

They’ll all be there. Uncle Jake and his hermaphrodite wisband, your cousin Kenny with his hip flask and sunken eyes, Jamie, still topless after all these years, and all the rest. They’ll all be there to see what grand pappy has for them.

The lawyer will take all of you in with his impassive, thoughtful nature. He’ll shuffle the papers on his desk and then he’ll begin.

“Thank you for coming here today,” he’ll begin.

“Faggot,” Roy, the neo-Nazi, will mutter under his breath.

“Please, hold your comments to the end,” the lawyer will say, pushing his glasses up the bridge of his nose. “Your grandfather-“

“Grand pappy,” your mother will correct, eyes wild from her morning speedball.

The lawyer will sigh. “Your grand pappy, then, requested that you all be present for the reading of his will, as it was one of his last desires to see your entire family together again. Since he saw this as unlikely he believed that his death could be a unifying experience for all of you.”

“You ain’t better than me!” Darlene will shout, hurting a chair across the room in a fit of rage. She dislikes it when people use the word experience.

The lawyer will pause briefly, taking in the ruined chair and Darlene’s panting, enraged visage.

“Can we continue?”

Darlene will nod and sit on the floor, Indian style.

“Excellent. He also wanted to be sure that you all knew just how much he loved you and how glad he was to have all of you in his life.”

“FUUUUUCK!” Jimmy will explode. His tourretic outburst will be ignored by the family, although he will get a slight reaction from the lawyer.

“Moving on. He also wanted to be sure that there were no secrets. As such it is conditional that each of you be here and listen to the entire distribution of his estate in order to receive your share.”

“God damn Jews,” Aunt Esther will say in a normal tone of voice to no one in particular. She thought you were gay for a solid decade, even after you married Sarah, the only one in this room who ever formed a personal relationship outside of the family. By now the lawyer will be ignoring your family’s various outbursts and he’ll get down to brass tacks.

“To Francis Del McWalkerson I hearby bequeath my incredibly profitable soap company. I know you’ll ensure that the business stays strong and will never rest of your laurels. I’ve always been proud of you.”

You’ll jump out of your chair, hand clasped to your chest. You always knew your grand pappy loved you, but now you’ve got proof. You’ll want to book it right out of that room, but then you’ll remember that if you do so you’ll lose every last penny that the only sane member of your family just gave you.

You’ll take a deep breath and sit down while your family edges forward, anxious to hear what will be announced next. The lawyer will be grinning now, and he’ll gesture for you to stand again. You’ll do so and he’ll begin reading once more.

“To the rest of my family I bequeath my beloved attack dogs. I hope that they find you in good health.”

Your family will look about, puzzled. None of them knew about grand pappy’s hounds, the care he’d taken to making them into man eating killing machines. None of them knew that he’d named each of them after a member of the family, raising them to be just as mad and mean as every drop of blood he’d ever known.

But they’ll understand what he meant by it when the lawyer flips his switch and their chairs suddenly give way to trapdoors in the floor, sending them into a pit where the dogs have been sleeping. Their loud screams will wake them, and the dog’s hunger will do the rest. You’ll still be there standing alone, stunned by what has just happened as the lawyer smiles genially at you, as if he hadn’t murdered your entire family with the push of a button.

“That concludes our procedings,” he’ll say.

Don’t be too sad afterwards if you can help it. Everyone in your family was a dick, and half of them were thinking of how they could murder you and take everything you had the moment that lawyer announced you’d get the soap company. Instead try to dwell on the happy times, like that time your grand pappy let you help him teach a rotweiller to attack a mannequin dressed like your mother.

And congratulations on acquiring a tidy fortune! Get it?!