I have a hard time not reading while I eat and I suck at dinner conversations. I blame it on Mom. Mom, who spent years having to sit at the table and make polite conversation, never allowed to leave the table until my Grandfather gave his permission. Mom, who would often excuse herself to the bathroom, sit on the edge of the bathtub and read until they came looking for her. As a result of her forced formal dinners, she did the opposite with our dinner routine. Most of our dinners growing up were the three of us sitting at the table reading and not speaking to each other. When we did speak with each other, all topics were fair game. I would tell stories about things other kids were doing or smoking or sleeping with, the wilder the better. My brother would discuss the ins and outs of basketball, quote baseball statistics or tell ridiculous jokes that weren’t funny. And Mom would tell us what she did at work that day complete with details about co-workers we would never meet and the computer system we will never understand. None of us would actually listen to each other. Odd but it was our weird dinner norm.
The holidays would just amplify our weird norm. Uncle is unflappable. As a biologist, he has seen everything and has no qualms about sharing icky things he’s learned about the insides and outsides of birds. One Christmas, after he had spent some time describing the cream of spinach as “something a cow had been chewing on for days” he caused Brother to puke by describing the mashed potatoes Brother had just put in his mouth as "zit squeezing’s". Aunt is married to him so she can keep up with him, can also spew random gross information about birds, although she’s rather more versed in what is and isn’t okay in polite company. One Thanksgiving, in somewhat polite company, it all went tits up. As said my uncle is pretty unflappable. I knew I could never out gross him so I decided I would embarrass him. Sadly I cannot say I was a teenager when this happened. I was well past the age stupid attempts at embarrassing someone to win imaginary points is okay. I’m sure my insecurity with the overwhelming intelligence of the others at the table caused this rude, classless display. Can’t be bothered to psychoanalyze it now. All I know is that I did not come out on top. (Pun not intended) Let me set the scene. It’s Thanksgiving. I honestly can’t remember what we were eating. Just because it was the turkey holiday doesn’t mean that there was a bird on the table. Since my grandmother died, my family had slowly let go of the traditions she'd held up for so long. We’d gotten lazy. We’d stopped putting the candlesticks on the table. Stopped bringing out the good china or the silver and, on some occasions, even stopped serving turkey. Mom was seated at the head of the table; scarf tied about her bald chemo head. Uncle and Aunt were seated opposite my friend-kind-of-date, Australian “Bob”, and me. Because he was Australian, he was also unflappable. I think it’s an Australian trait. I’m not sure if his funky personality is why I went rogue with my dinner conversation, if his presence helped make me brave and totally stupid at the same time. All I know is I chose this as the night I upgraded from silly stories to totally inappropriate questions at the dinner table - and lost the war. Somewhere between the small talk about the weather and the places we’d all been in Australia, I chose to throw out this brilliant question to Uncle. This totally inappropriate, unsuitable for polite company, I'm going directly to hell, question at our Thanksgiving table. “Uncle. Have you ever had a threesome?” I expected blushing. I expected stuttering. I expected silence. I did not expect a single word answer. UNCLE: No. Followed by… UNCLE: Have you?” Shocked at the rapid fire return, I blushed. I stuttered. I blurted. ME: NO! I blushed some more, my color reaching coal red. I retreated behind my fork, hoping the moment had passed and I could recover while the conversation moved on. But it didn't. It got worse. Aunt turned to my friend-kind-of-date and asked him – AUNT: Have you had a threesome, Australian Bob? And suddenly my attempt to shock and awe my Uncle turned into an inquisition of my friend-kind-of-date and his sexual proclivities. My friend-kind-of-date, who had no qualms about responding to each and every question with details - lots and lots of very explicit and somewhat gross details. Turns out, my friend-kind-of-date had had threesomes. Lots of them. With boy-girl-boy combinations and with girl-boy-girl combinations. Aunt and Uncle had no qualms about asking questions – any specific and personal question they could about his experiences with multiple partners. Mom just sat there at the head of the table, laughing herself into tears, as I slowly turned brighter and brighter red and my head exploded in utter horror at the situation I’d created. This was my monster and I couldn’t stop it. I couldn't stop it when my friend-kind-of-date shared this gem with everyone at the table – AUSTRALIAN BOB: If you’re gonna to have a boy-girl-boy threesome, you would be best served to not have Indian food the night before. Or when, somewhere in the middle of this stellar conversation, my friend-kind-of-date brought up vibrators. And asked me if I had one. In front of Mom. And Uncle. And Aunt. It’s at this point I died a million tiny little deaths. Or it could have been the part when he ASKED THEM IF THEY HAD ONE???? AND THEY ANSWERED! Lesson was learned. All the points did not go to me. I would never win a battle against Uncle. And if I couldn’t handle the heat, I needed to stay out of the kitchen. Or at least out of any future discussion about anything sexual at any family event. Ever. You’d think the story ends here but it doesn’t. You’d think that this might be the worse it gets but it’s not. Australian Bob, and I were set to go to a holiday party thrown by a couple of my friends a few days later. And Australian Bob decided to stop at a sex shop and buy me a vibrator on the way…! To be continued - tomorrow.
2 Comments
Beth
11/25/2013 12:29:40 am
I am laughing so hard I'm crying. And I thought our family T-givings were nutty:) The best part is about the unflappable Aussies. My sister was married to a wonderful man from Melbourne who died a year ago- this sounds just like him. His sense of humor was soooo wicked. Can't wait to get this to my baby sister.
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ej
11/25/2013 12:48:55 am
Thanks Beth - tune in for tomorrow's post. Talk about unflappable - pun intended!
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AuthorMy name is ej. I'm a girl. I say that because with the short hair and the short initials, folks aren't always sure. More brilliant insights to who I am in About me Archives
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