Mescaline and Fried Chicken
Your first dog. The first time you have sex. Watching a national landmark on television as it gets hit by a commercial airliner. Going to a Hayes Family Reunion.
Memories. Some are sweet and enjoyable to return to in your mind, and some are bitter and painful to recount. Some leave you with the feeling of warmth and the remembrance of better days, and some leave you with the insatiable need to consume flaming mixed drinks and burn out the images with a soldering iron through the ear. The Hayes Family Reunion is one such occasion that every year leaves me pondering whether it is possible to insert an electric wisk through my nasal passages and hitting the power button.
Sunday was the Hayes Family Reunion, and since Brandy was coming with me I spent a week mentally preparing her for what was to occur. Over the years I have come to understand the phenomenon that is the H.F.R. and have discovered a set of rules and standards that need to apply in order to make it through with enough sanity to return to normal, functioning life in as little as two months.
Rule # 1- Arrive early.
Most people would see this as foolish and choose, instead, to arrive late in hopes that the line for the food would already be moving and that they could pull the “eat and leave” maneuver. This might work at some reunions, but the Hayes clan doesn’t let this slide. As soon as they see you enter the door they already have eight questions a piece to ask you and none of them are shy about stopping by your seat and asking while you are trying to eat. Thus, it takes you a very long time to finish the meal in front of you because every time you raise that fork of potato salad to your mouth you find that you are using it to answer a question instead of chewing.
By arriving early you guarantee that there will be very few people there and you can answer questions and “catch up” with people as they enter instead of walking into a room of people and getting bombarded with questions and comments. Plus, arriving early means that you stay for a while before it is time to eat so that no one looks at you crossly when you beat a hasty retreat after you have shoveled the last of Aunt Somebody’s cobbler into your mouth. Arriving early allows you to dictate your pace by observing Rule # 2.
Rule # 2- Establish a bubble.
The way this works is, once you arrive early (that’s Rule # 1 if you skipped ahead) and greet the relatives (recognizable strangers) that are already there you go to the table farthest away from the door and set up a base with like-minded people of roughly the same age. This way, you can see the relatives that come through the door and prepare in advance for questions and comments that are sure to ensue. This also serves a dual purpose in that it allows you to see anyone advancing on you, and lets anyone that sees you know that you are sitting down and have no interest in helping carry in food.
Tragedy strikes when you leave the protective bubble, this much I can assure you of. The bubble on Sunday was my sister April, her boyfriend Josh, my sweetheart Brandy, and Me (batteries not included). April decided that she was going to walk across the room to say hello to someone that had not ventured over to the bubble yet, and was quickly snatched by my aunt Beverly and recruited to be in charge of incoming food placement along the table. When she was done she came back to the bubble and never got back up. I have learned from years of experience when it is safe to get up from the bubble and venture forth, and I used this ingrained knowledge to judge the proper moment to make my way to the bathroom. I took my leak, and made it back to the table without being accosted. (This knowledge is top secret, and cannot be reveled lest the Iranians gain wind of it and we loose our edge in the war against terror)
Standard # 1- Chronology
It is a given that certain things will happen at the Hayes Family Reunion. Someone’s feelings will get hurt by either a comment or by an out-right insult. Someone will ask either April or me when we are gonna start popping out kids to keep the family line branching. My dad will choose to invade my bubble and point out every person that comes through the door, complete with a chronological history of where they come from and how they are related to us. After this goes on for a only a few minutes I usually find myself staring at thin air hoping to produce a mescaline pill with just the atoms in the air and my mind. The pill wouldn’t stop dad from talking…but it would provide the nice, creamy feeling that would allow it to be bearable.
Standard # 2- Food
You can be assured when going to a Hayes Family Reunion that there will be copious amounts of four particular foods. You can always bet the bank on there being BBQ, potato salad, deviled eggs, and (of course) fried chicken. Everyone seems to bring these particular foods because they are afraid that no one else will, and so the tables are often loaded with these types of foods in varying degrees of preparation. One year I took jambalaya and hardly anyone touched it. So I stopped bringing food to the reunions and contented myself with having three types of potato salad, four types of deviled eggs, BBQ of some fashion or the other, and six types of fried chicken.
In retrospect, it was one of the better reunions in that I didn’t feel the constant need to rid myself of all my hair via removing it forcefully one large clump at a time with my hands. I believe that Brandy helped me to stay sane by helping me to stay vigilant due to feeling a constant need to protect her from certain cousins that only come to family reunions for one thing. And it’s not the seven types of chicken. You know who you are Biscuits.
Memories. Some are sweet and enjoyable to return to in your mind, and some are bitter and painful to recount. Some leave you with the feeling of warmth and the remembrance of better days, and some leave you with the insatiable need to consume flaming mixed drinks and burn out the images with a soldering iron through the ear. The Hayes Family Reunion is one such occasion that every year leaves me pondering whether it is possible to insert an electric wisk through my nasal passages and hitting the power button.
Sunday was the Hayes Family Reunion, and since Brandy was coming with me I spent a week mentally preparing her for what was to occur. Over the years I have come to understand the phenomenon that is the H.F.R. and have discovered a set of rules and standards that need to apply in order to make it through with enough sanity to return to normal, functioning life in as little as two months.
Rule # 1- Arrive early.
Most people would see this as foolish and choose, instead, to arrive late in hopes that the line for the food would already be moving and that they could pull the “eat and leave” maneuver. This might work at some reunions, but the Hayes clan doesn’t let this slide. As soon as they see you enter the door they already have eight questions a piece to ask you and none of them are shy about stopping by your seat and asking while you are trying to eat. Thus, it takes you a very long time to finish the meal in front of you because every time you raise that fork of potato salad to your mouth you find that you are using it to answer a question instead of chewing.
By arriving early you guarantee that there will be very few people there and you can answer questions and “catch up” with people as they enter instead of walking into a room of people and getting bombarded with questions and comments. Plus, arriving early means that you stay for a while before it is time to eat so that no one looks at you crossly when you beat a hasty retreat after you have shoveled the last of Aunt Somebody’s cobbler into your mouth. Arriving early allows you to dictate your pace by observing Rule # 2.
Rule # 2- Establish a bubble.
The way this works is, once you arrive early (that’s Rule # 1 if you skipped ahead) and greet the relatives (recognizable strangers) that are already there you go to the table farthest away from the door and set up a base with like-minded people of roughly the same age. This way, you can see the relatives that come through the door and prepare in advance for questions and comments that are sure to ensue. This also serves a dual purpose in that it allows you to see anyone advancing on you, and lets anyone that sees you know that you are sitting down and have no interest in helping carry in food.
Tragedy strikes when you leave the protective bubble, this much I can assure you of. The bubble on Sunday was my sister April, her boyfriend Josh, my sweetheart Brandy, and Me (batteries not included). April decided that she was going to walk across the room to say hello to someone that had not ventured over to the bubble yet, and was quickly snatched by my aunt Beverly and recruited to be in charge of incoming food placement along the table. When she was done she came back to the bubble and never got back up. I have learned from years of experience when it is safe to get up from the bubble and venture forth, and I used this ingrained knowledge to judge the proper moment to make my way to the bathroom. I took my leak, and made it back to the table without being accosted. (This knowledge is top secret, and cannot be reveled lest the Iranians gain wind of it and we loose our edge in the war against terror)
Standard # 1- Chronology
It is a given that certain things will happen at the Hayes Family Reunion. Someone’s feelings will get hurt by either a comment or by an out-right insult. Someone will ask either April or me when we are gonna start popping out kids to keep the family line branching. My dad will choose to invade my bubble and point out every person that comes through the door, complete with a chronological history of where they come from and how they are related to us. After this goes on for a only a few minutes I usually find myself staring at thin air hoping to produce a mescaline pill with just the atoms in the air and my mind. The pill wouldn’t stop dad from talking…but it would provide the nice, creamy feeling that would allow it to be bearable.
Standard # 2- Food
You can be assured when going to a Hayes Family Reunion that there will be copious amounts of four particular foods. You can always bet the bank on there being BBQ, potato salad, deviled eggs, and (of course) fried chicken. Everyone seems to bring these particular foods because they are afraid that no one else will, and so the tables are often loaded with these types of foods in varying degrees of preparation. One year I took jambalaya and hardly anyone touched it. So I stopped bringing food to the reunions and contented myself with having three types of potato salad, four types of deviled eggs, BBQ of some fashion or the other, and six types of fried chicken.
In retrospect, it was one of the better reunions in that I didn’t feel the constant need to rid myself of all my hair via removing it forcefully one large clump at a time with my hands. I believe that Brandy helped me to stay sane by helping me to stay vigilant due to feeling a constant need to protect her from certain cousins that only come to family reunions for one thing. And it’s not the seven types of chicken. You know who you are Biscuits.
posted by Burning Stickman at 3:12 PM
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