Yesterday was Sunday, so my immediate family met up for the customary dinner because we cant all afford to move that far away from each other and free eats are free eats.Pop culture portrays this as a black thing, but actually it’s very southern and may be the case across culture — so non-black readers please continue to read, this is likely only different from y’all being not holiday dependant and spoken in ebonics.

The reason this is done is to cement the bonds of our family, which sounds sweet but translates into reinforcement of the matriarchal pecking order via verbal sparring with the only male (me) serving as referee. We got four generations here (in order of authority and age — not a coincidence): grandma the reigning queen in her eighties; my mother and aunt — heirs apparent in their 60’s; my cousin and myself — her early 40’s, me early 30’s, we‘re not near bitter enough to compete rendering us mostly neutral; my cousin’s kids are teenagers — the boy cleans the plate and leaves (wisely), the girl sits and asks questions, learning how to rule when her queenly reign begins in 2062.

 The top ladies table 75% of the debate (and produce 90% of the volume) mostly over whose aches are the worst, whose had to deal the most that week, and arrangements for our upcoming family reunion (the Olympics of Commiseration). My cousin and I interject occasionally to break ties and chuckle (dreading when we’ll ascend to their station) in between our safe discussions of topics, mostly dealing with cable TV, movies, and pop culture, which the matriarchs are ignorant of (sometimes, mention Barack and learn how the white man will take him out).

One of my favorite professors once said: “Marriage is a house with no toilets.” Prophetically true it appears to me, don’t most divorces begin with  “I’m sick of your shit” ? Could this be the nature of all relationships to a degree? Romantics may object to this as cynical, I invite them to a dinner here with a group of older divorced or widowed women whom after a tasty meal dump their emotional septic tanks on the table and challenge each other on whose pile is biggest.  

I wonder why I’m single?

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