i will never bring anyone home for dinner

Family dinners at my house are quite the event. For starters, we have to cram eight people around a dining room table that was really only built for six. Elbow room and passing the salad dressing are constant points of contention.

What makes dining chez Black a real treat, though, are the table manners of the men of the household. My father chomps his food like a horse. The loud, clacking together of teeth is the soundtrack to every meal. He chews mashed potatoes, for crying out loud. I kid you not. Whenever he picks up an apple to snack on, I literally have to excuse myself from the room.

My brother inhales food like he's been starved since birth. It sounds much like what I assume a slavering wolf feeding on a baby lamb would sound like. Also, he doesn't drink his water throughout his meal. No, he saves it all until the end, when he downs it in three disgustingly loud gulps. You can actually hear the crunchy sounds of the muscles in his throat expanding to accomodate all that liquid going down at once. And HEAVEN FORBID he help clear the table. I don't think he even knows where anything goes. The ketchup would end up lost in the freezer somewhere, the dirty dishes in the vegetable drawer, and the salt and pepper in the dishwasher.

Lastly, there's my grandfather. It's really more about what he doesn't do at the dinner table: engage in conversation or approve of others that do; pass anything to anyone; make any effort to be pleasant at all. And he eats some of the most disgusting concoctions I've ever seen, like boiled, mashed-up cauliflower and this weird yellow fish soup my grandma makes him. He puts sweet pickles and chunks of bread in it. I would actually rather take a bullet than find out what that shit tastes like. On the rare occasion that the rest of the family is eating something that he likes, I think he feels entitled to all of said food. If I take an extra piece of garlic bread (or three, because I FUCKING LOVE garlic bread), he glares at me with his hawk eyes and shakes his head, like I might as well be taking the goddamn food off of his own plate.



The garlic bread almost isn't worth it when I'm looking at this from the other end of the table.

at least i always know when he's coming

My dad has this pair of Edmonton Oilers track pants- and before I go on, if you think you're gonna come on here and tell me how much the Oilers suck, you can save your breath. I fucking know already, okay, so you'd better just shut up. Anyway, my sister gave them to him for Christmas or his birthday or something a few years ago. I'm pretty sure he forgot he still had them until she pointed out a few months ago that he never wore them anymore. Ever since then, he wears these stupid pants three, maybe four, times a week.

I should mention that my dad is a very restless person. Which wouldn't be a problem, but combine that with the fact that he has absolutely no hobbies, save watching Judge John Deed on BBC and asking me when I'm going to go back to school (NEVER, old man), it means that he kind of just wanders between the upstairs sitting room, the kitchen, and the downstairs TV room on a near-constant circuit until his shows are on.

In his track pants.

Fucking SWISH, SWISH, SWISH all goddamn day long is all I ever hear. I'm not kidding, I'm going to sneak those pants out of the laundry room one day, and set the fuckers on fire. There's no reason for someone who does nothing but shuffle around the house all the live long day to wear pants that aurally offensive.

yeah, well, you look old

My grandmother is actually the most annoying person in the world. You might think she's cute, because she's tiny and Scottish and seems to be in such high spirits all the time, so living with her must be an absolute pleasure. Rest assured, you are wrong. I'm pretty sure she is secretly a witch who feeds off the irritation and self-esteem of young women. It's what keeps her so bouncy.

I was minding my business, reading my book this morning when she pounced on me out of nowhere. She stopped to look at me, concern etched on her weathered, old face, and I knew what was coming. I knew, because she asks me the same fucking thing every other day of my life and it makes me want to push her down some stairs or something.

"You look tired. Are you tired?"

This is, honestly, one of the rudest, most passive-aggressive questions you could ever be asked. Regardless of whether you happen to be tired or not, it is perfectly clear that the enquirer, while appearing to merely be expressing concern for your well-being, only wants to make you aware of the fact that you look like a hot mess.

What's even worse is that I'm almost never actually tired when she asks me, and I tell her this. Her response is always "Oh, okay" and looking even more concerned, like she doubts my truthfulness. Which to me, translates to "Really? Then why in God's name could you very easily pass as an extra from Shaun of the Dead?"

Sometimes, I just thank her for letting me know how haggard I look, and she goes off in a wee huff and doesn't talk to me for a while. Guess what, Grandma? Your silence is like a little slice of heaven, actually, not a punishment at all. So, suck on that.