Good Food Brings a Family Together

This is a work of fiction. No real people, places or events were used. Copyright ã 2011 Plot Roach.

Good Food Brings a Family Together

By Plot Roach

So it wasn’t by chance that I was invited to my boyfriend’s family reunion, I kind of knew what he was up to, but was hoping that he wouldn’t do it just the same. He said that he had a big surprise for me, and I’m pretty sure it was one of those sparkling rings that comes with a question of would I like to cook his meals, bring him a beer and watch the kids for every day of the rest of my life. So I guess that you know my view of marriage.

I thought that he would pop the question to me in a small, quiet setting. Like when we were out at a little romantic restaurant. Which never happens, because we never go anywhere where you can’t refill your own drink and the plastic trays aren’t lined with paper advertisements or a bar graph of how unhealthy the food that you’re eating is for you.

But no, he would probably ask me in front of the whole Dock clan, and embarrass me into saying yes. Or I could say no and have thirty people after me, from the five year old twins banned from scout camp for skinning a live squirrel to Nana Mary, a woman so old and ornery that I think Hades may have patterned the vultures that eat Prometheus’ liver on a daily basis after her. If I dared to say no, I doubted that I would get out alive. And even if I did, I’d have to move out of town, since the clan made up the majority of the population of our small country town.

So I bided my time, hoped that Jack Jr. would get cold feet or that one of his many kin would talk some sense into him. After all, I was literate, had a mind of my own and definitely believed in the miracles of science. It was a combination that would not do well in a small, inbred family that still believed that pregnant women belonged in the kitchen. And that you didn’t need to tell a woman with two black eyes her place, because you had already told her -twice.

We started the day with a pledge of allegiance to the flag, not the norm in most family circles. But I didn’t feel too bad about it, since their flag was missing a few stars and I don’t recall the official pledge having anything to do with ‘keeping them damned liberals out of the White House’.

Then the children of the clan got together and sang a wonderful country song about freedom, love of country and honorable death. They sang in every key but the right one, much to the chagrin of the neighborhood dogs.

The barbeques, I say this because there were five, were all fired up, each having its own type of dead beast to be charred to perfection. Vegetables? The Dock clan believed that vegetables were what their food ate and had no place on a table unless it was in a can holding down the napkins to keep them from flying away on the breeze. They celebrated every event with the sacrifice of some animal in a roast, stew or grill and used PETA fliers to start the fire.

With the fires at full blaze, children running after each other and adults arguing political and religious views (often one in the same), Jack Jr. decided to take the moment to get the clan’s attention, making sure all eyes were on us, before he knelt before me on bended knee. I should have enjoyed it while it lasted, since this would be the first and only time he would ever debase himself in public on my account.

“Megan, I love you. Will you be mine?” he said, producing a tattered velvet box that probably held a vintage ring pried off of some great aunt’s finger not two minutes after her death. Be diplomatic, I told myself. And if you can’t hold your tongue, then run as fast as your feet will take you. I opened my mouth, but didn’t have time to say a word...

Since a twenty foot spaceship crash landed right there in the backyard. It took out the picnic table, which was a shame since I was looking forward to another glass of heavily spiked sweet tea. Part of the ship came loose and plowed through the earth, stopping a few inches from my feet, but not before reducing Jack Jr. into something we might have thrown on the barbeque.

Aliens swarmed from the hull breach, looking like silver cockroaches wearing broken kitchen gadgets. They pointed guns and made a circle around us. But for all of their intimidating looks and fancy gizmos, they were as dumb as ducks. They just stood there, clicking and posing as if they meant to scare us to death. But Rob, Jack’s uncle, had a gut full of it and decided to upend a barbeque onto one of the creatures. The rest of the family grabbed whatever weapons came to hand as the aliens watched as one of their own snapped and crackled in the flames -smelling vaguely like stale movie theater popcorn.

And you wouldn’t believe how much damage a handful of kids can do with plastic pink flamingos and where Nana Mary decided to bury her gardening trowel. The aliens were dispatched in a good old fashioned redneck way, with brute force and small explosions of gunfire. By the time their ship cooled down, all of them were dead or dying, Jack Jr. being our only real casualty (unless you counted the pot roast that had been on the upturned barbeque). Already the clan was pulling off parts of the alien craft to make into new sheds, flower pots and I’m sure a bong or two.

The dogs started cleaning up the alien corpses before we could. And when it was discovered that none of them suffered any negative effects from eating the alien meat, a few of us became adventurous and popped some bug parts onto one of the still burning barbeques. I’ll admit that I was as curious as the others and tried a bite or two. They weren’t like chicken, as everyone had assumed, but tasted more like imitation crab meat. It was a little odd and dry at first, but with a good dollop of mayonnaise, it went down just fine with beer bread biscuits and a glass of sweet tea. Toward the end of the feast, Nana Mary signaled that she wanted to make an announcement.

“We know that Jack Jr. wasn’t quite the catch you wanted and all. But we’d still like you to be part of the family, if you’ll have us." Nana Mary said, handing me the ring that Jack had used to propose to me, his blood still staining the band.

What can I say? Aside from the political, religious and personal views of these people and how they differ drastically from my own… They really are my kind of people.