All the hellos have been said, the coats have been stowed, the kids are inspecting the myriad serving dishes of treats and hors d’oevres that Charlotte and Jack have prepared.
Jack offers cocktails. Asks what we’d like to drink. Scott replies that we’d like to drink what he is drinking. He says he’s having a Bicycle Thief. Would we like to try one?
I inquire, “If I have to tell my mother to stop talking, will it make me brave enough to do so, without slurring my words?” He’s not sure about the slurring but the bravery is covered.
Yes, please. We’ll take two.
Moments later Jack appears with two brightly colored drinks. Salve for my wounded nerve endings.
We take seats in the living room with Charlotte and Jack's boys. Another moment passes, and Jack appears with a beautiful dish containing some yummy looking smoked sausages and dipping sauce. As he proudly enters the room, Bill stops him and says, “Jooomeeeeyafaveurrrrrrannnncuddeminhaffffffffffff.”
A whino says what?
Loosely translated by Scott, Bill had intended to ask Jack to slice the sausages in half before serving them. Wouldn’t want anyone to choke because their swallowing reflexes have been anesthetized beyond the point of involuntary functioning. Don’t laugh, it’s happened. All I want for Christmas is a Heimlich Maneuver and a stomach pump.
Glances around the room are exchanged and Jack retreats to the kitchen to comply with the request. I am sure the next one will be to mechanically soften the salmon and to emulsify the spiral ham. Note to self: Buy PEG tube on eBay for next birthday.
Bill doesn’t even eat the freakin’ sausage now that Jack has Ginsued and sliced and diced them down to toddler-ready tidbits. He’s in the kitchen having another round of ill-advised cocktails.
After a short time, Scott and I are presented with two fresh drinks, courtesy of Jack. This is a Bicycle Thief concoction also, but made with OJ instead of grapefruit juice, because “Bill doesn’t like grapefruit.” Jack says this with an implied, “Pain in the ass, that he is” tacked onto the end of the sentence. Bill sure knows how to work the crowd.
The games have begun, and at some point, for lapses in reason that I can not explain, Scott and Bill and Mom and I find ourselves confined to the kitchen alone together. Bill is prattling on and on about an expensive camera he bought and the fact that a camera you spend that much money on should have a little instruction book included (well, it did, but it was online, where most users of that camera would be happy to have it, but that is assuming a lot about Bill and Estelle. Just saying.) But to them, it didn’t, so they took "that thing" back and got this nifty little camera, and “just look at all the great pictures we’ve taken…” No really. Look at them all. And what followed was us having to seem to enjoy looking at dozens and dozens of pictures of road signs with double entendres and bumper stickers with racial epithets that they’ve stopped on the road side to memorialize on film for all posterity. Even Mom gets bored and sees an opportunity to exit, Stage Left, on the double.
And then Bill wants a photo of us. Me and Scott. And I lean in close to Scott to be photographed, but first kiss him on the cheek. And out of nowhere Bill objects and takes offense. Makes a snarky remark as though I am his 12 year old daughter doing something beyond my maturity level. Like lighting up a doobie.
And for the umteenth Christmas in a row, I know what it is like to want to vanish.
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