Annual family dinner ends in collective shame and everyone quitting their jobs to pursue more impressive careers
The curtains are on fire.
Screaming fills up every corner of the room.
The hellhounds have been released and Armageddon is officially upon us.
And by all that, what I actually mean is that the steam coming out of Auntie Kath’s ears is so strong, that it could easily burn away the side curtains she regrets getting cut. Every single family member who originally gathered around the dinner table in peace is now screaming at each other to the point where their voices are producing inaudible words. At least they’re probably burning quite a few calories with every powerful gesticulation they’re making. Oh, and the dogs? They just can’t be fucked to listen to it all.
The annual family dinner has officially reached its peak.
At first, everyone made it through the main course pretty much unwounded. Granny Anne only scoffed a little when no one took the initiative to pray before dinner but kept quiet most of the time, and granddad Paul didn’t bring up his war flashbacks at every possible opportunity. He even spared everyone of his graphic stories about how he used to seduce women as a soldier and climb into their bedrooms at night, (an apparently completely consensual act, not in the weird rapist and serial killer type of way), as he was probably too busy trying not to choke on his food. General discussions about the unstable weather and equally as unstable political climate were exchanged pretty civically, too. Everyone even remembered to point out how lovely the food was, while being entirely oblivious to the fact that it’s all put together with a stressful last-minute sticker sale shop from M&S.
The tension only started rising when Joshua, the good Christian of them all, had to give everyone the yearly reminder about how progressive he was for being his church’s first black and openly gay priest. It’s not his fault that he confuses sexuality with personality, and accidentally takes on the role of gay Gandhi, leading his fellow gays to liberation and the freedom to make everyone else feel bad for being straight. Twitter posts and Tumblr activism has taken over his mind and everyone knows how hard it is to burst that bubble. He’s also got many followers that are happy to destroy anyone who’d tell him that being black or gay or a Christian doesn’t instantly make you immune towards arseholeness (pun only intended if you thought of it too.)
Despite a couple of annoyances that only stung much later like insidious mosquito bites, the family was pleased with how the dinner was going thus far. It was now time to start clock-watching as they hopefully moved closer towards the end of their family dinner. At this point, uncle Harry was sharing how his start-up company was doing so well, they can soon invest in actual chairs instead of trying to justify sitting on pillows on the floor by calling it “edgy”, and saying “that’s how all the kids sit nowadays”. Of course someone had to start the conversation of “look at how well I’m doing in my career” when in reality it’s really about trying to cover up the fact that everyone’s either unemployed or simply just fucked. And not even in the good way.
In order for cousin Mary to compensate for and suppress the sexual frustration in her relationship, she jumped on the bandwagon and proudly told everyone how she’s been working particularly hard lately. She’s finally been promoted to social media market manager! However, her cousin Gary enlightened her that posting pictures on Instagram is not a profession, and that she should get a real job, while his own mother pointed out that sitting on her couch at home and uploading home-mixed hip hop tracks on SoundCloud didn’t go under the category of employment either. The rest of the ones that had been listening now joined in with updates on their careers as sanitation managers, granny pointing out that they might as well use their expensive degree to clean the toilets with, and entrepreneurs and writers, two more job roles that are synonymous with a life-long guarantee for financial instability. Unless they all aspired to live under the nearest bridge when their levels of ambitions have decreased completely, they should all sign up and work for daddy’s company, he pointed out. What he forgot to mention, however, was that he hasn’t had a pay rise in over 20 years now and that the company is slowly looking to replace him with a younger, post-graduate student who’s never worked a single day in his life.
Dessert hasn’t even been served yet, and half of the dinner guests are standing up now, screaming at each other. Gary’s mixtape is blaring out of the speakers in support of his attempt to explain how technically advanced and talented he is as a musician. After all, he’s only one viral tweet away from becoming famous. Mary is scrolling through her company’s Instagram feed and talks about the complexity of timing posts at a time where her audience is most likely to be active. Gary’s wife reminds him of how limited she felt during her marriage, when all she wanted to do in life was to become a professional fashion designer, and granddad is complaining about how easy everyone’s lives are over 70 years after the war. At least there’s one thing that probably never changes for several more years to come: family dinner.
Photo by Stefan Vladimirov on Unsplash