Some Kind of Family

What a family! They are so typical that they are borderline cliche. Every time she goes to a family function this is what happens…

Her mother tells her to be there at four in the afternoon, and she leaves her house at that exact time, knowing that it will only take her fifteen minutes to get to the restaurant. She also knows that the rest of the family won’t be there until at least four-thirty.

When she arrives at four-fifteen, her mother and father are waiting at the bar. Shocker, no one’s there but the three of them. That would be fine, if it wasn’t for the fact that the restaurant’s an inferno on the hottest day of the year.

Then the waiting game begins. Her mother asking her daughter to tell her why she doesn’t like her Godfather/Uncle’s new girlfriend. After which, her father smiles at her, calls her “Poot,” and asks if she heard him when he mowed the lawn that morning. Of course, she heard him. How could she not? He was so loud. But she can’t complain, because he did a good deed.

Finally, the brood arrives in a loud blur, and in seconds, all of their arms are around her. “Hi! How are you?” Is the question buzzing in the air.

“Good, and you?” she replies, and then listens to the array of “Fine’s” and “Good’s.” Still her Godfather/Uncle is not there, but that’s typical. This time though, she has some good news.

She is the first of her father’s family to graduate from college. Cum Laude. After she tells them, her grandmother, who wants her to call her “Mom-mom” after she’s called her “Grandmom” all of her life, gives her a well-deserved high five. Then the real fun begins.

The grandmother asks her what she is going to do with her life now that she is done school. Like the woman actually cares. She has never liked the girl and she only wants to know so she can belittle her. But the girl answers her anyway. She smiles and tells the noisy grandmother that she wishes to do an internship first…“then, you know, I will figure the rest out.” The sooner or later is unspoken. This repsonse seems to pacify everyone, and it is now time to sit at their table, so the questioning stops. For now.

All thirteen of them, except her Godfather-Uncle and his new girlfriend, go and sit down.

One of her twin aunts tells her that they are “in love,” and the girl promptly coughs out the word, “rebound.” After all, he is not even divorced yet. That’s when her mother tells her that she loves her, and that she is the best daughter ever.

After a few minutes, the wayward son, who is forty years old and is now living with his mommy, arrives with his new girlfriend. The girl notices that woman is, as she dubs her in her head, “The Girl with the Angle Tattoo.” Later on, when she gets to know this girlfriend a little better, the girl compliments her on said tattoo and she is met with an eye roll. As it turns out, the woman does not like the angel, but the girl does not care. She likes what she likes, and she likes that tattoo.

Right away, she knows why her mother doesn’t like this girlfriend. But she doesn’t say anything. She just watches, as the two sit at the opposite end of the table. Then her grandmother asks if she met the girlfriend. It is obvious that she hasn’t, because they just walked by her without so much as a word. After she says as much, her grandmother tells her to get up and pulls her over to meet “the new girl.”

“Oh, my God,” the girlfriend says in a sultry alto, “how beautiful. Look at that skin,” which is now crawling, “and those lips. Now let me see the eyes,” the girl has to take off her tinted glasses, so she can see them. “Oh, my God,” the girlfriend says again, but this time she adds fake awe, “so beautiful. Uh, I hate you.” They all laugh, but the girl is glad that she wore her protection against the evil eye.

“How old are you now?” her Godfather/Uncle asks. “Twenty-two?”

“Twenty-four,” she corrects. It’s not like you were at the christening or anything, she thinks, as a chorus of “twenty-four” goes through the group.

The girls grandmother then announces that the girl “needs a man,” and everyone around them, except her father, agrees.

Almost six years of college, the first one of her father’s family to graduate, with honors no less, while battling an array of health problems (not that she has ever complained), and she needs a man. She has never had a man. Ever. And she does not see the point of one until she gets her life together. The girl thinks that common sense, but obviously, her “family” does not see it that way. You could work hard all your life, but if you don’t have a man, you are nothing in their eyes, and that is just not fair.

The girl laughs it off, sitting by her mother again. The girl then asks her mother if she wishes to use the restroom and they go with silent understanding. While in there, the girl tells her mother that she is so tired of these people, and that she wishes to go home. But her mother only seems interested about what the daughter thinks about the new girlfriend. The girl gives her gut reaction and says that the woman is just like them and one of the biggest phonies she has ever met in her entire life. That’s saying a lot, considering that her father’s family is full of phonies.

When they are done with powdering their noses, the girl and her mother go back to the table and order their food. The girl gets hers to-go. She doesn’t want to eat in this hot place with all of these loud people, who are jokingly known as her “family.” The girl now waits, as her grandmother tells her about her stomach problems.

“Do you think it has something to do with the forty year old living with you?” her father says bluntly, and even though her grandmother denies it, the girl and her mother can’t help but laugh. Her father is so right.

The blend of voices is giving the girl a headache, and when the food finally comes, they eat and she waits. Then as the dinner winds down, the discussion turns towards her again.

“She wants to go into P.R.,” her father tells her grandmother.

This is the first that the girl is hearing this. She’s shocked. “What?” she asks, confused.

He tells her that her mother is the one that told him this blatant lie.

“A possibility,” her mother corrects him, and the girl is just so tired of people planning her life for her without asking her what she might think about it.

That’s when it begins again. “You need a man,” her grandmother repeats. Broken record. She wants to set her up with a thirty-year-old divorced man with a crazy ex-wife and two kids.

The girl has had enough. She asked the server to get her order right away, and about two minutes of insane chatter later, they arrive with her food in a doggy bag. She grabs it, smiles at everyone, kisses her mother and gets out of dodge.

Afterward, on the drive home, she listens to music trying to unwind. “You need a man,” is still playing in her head. She cannot stand the fact that she lets those people get under her skin. But she just tries to sing her blues away, while she drives as fast as she can away from them.

Finally, she’s home. She throws her keys in the bowl, kicks off her shoes, puts her purse away and plops down on the couch. She replays the infuriating scenario in her head over and over again. She cannot understand why those people just can’t except her for who she is. An intelligent girl, who likes to write and thinks that staying at home with a good book is better than going out to a club. Then she closes her eyes and thinks about all the things that she wants to do with her life. On the top of that list is to move far, far away so that she only has to deal with these people over the telephone or through emails. She thinks about how being on her own would be a slice of heaven, and then tries to think of the places she wants to go.

The girl hears a car pull up and knows it’s her gram, who is her mother’s mother, and her aunt coming home from their grocery shopping. She gets up and puts a smile on her face, while she helps them put the food away. She knows what is coming and she’s dreading it. Finally, it happens…

“How did dinner with the ‘family’ go?” her gram asks, and the girl tells her about how horrible they were to her, and how all they wanted to do was set her up with a thirty year old complicated mess with no job. Her grandmother is shocked by this. “You are too sick and too young to be thinking of such things right now, especially since you don’t have a job in a pie factory! Those people don’t know you, and if you let them get to you, you have rocks in your head. You just be you, and all the rest will fall into place.” The girl genuinely smiles at that, and knows that her gram is the only one that truly understands her.

After a few minutes, the girl gets ready for bed, the “you need a man” long gone from her mind as she comes downstairs to watch a movie with her gram. It is something old and in black and white. This horrible day has now turned into something wonderful, as she laughs at the old jokes in the movie, and when it’s over, she picks up a book and begins to read where she left off.

Around one o’clock in the morning, the girl feels her eyes getting heavy. She brushes her teeth, shuts off the light and climbs into bed. Suddenly, the dinner comes rushing back to her in one big clump, and she just lies there thinking. She gets angry with herself for not telling them to get out of her life. But she can’t do that for her father’s sake, so she just has to deal with them. For now.

As she closes her eyes, she thinks to herself that it is only once a year. Then she remembers Christmas and almost begins to cry.

Why do I have to have such a family? She asks herself. What did I do in this life to deserve people who despise me so much that they belittle and offend me every time I’m around them? “Just lucky, I guess,” she answers her own thoughts, and rolls onto her back. She starts to wish that she hadn’t gone to that stupid dinner in the first place, and then dreads that in six months, she’s going to have to do it all over again.

And that, my friends, is just not fair.