A New Kind Of Hazard

A Family Dinner

December 29, 2007
by Brynn7

It may not seem like an adventure to most, but dinner with my family has been likened on the "danger! danger!" scale to white-water rafting or fighting a bear. Temporary amnesia allows us to forget the previous family gatherings and reattempt a meaningful investment in family bonding. Such was the case a few days after Christmas of 2007 when my the family of my father's sister traveled to my rural Arkansas home from their abode in Oklahoma City.

Everyone was hungry upon the arrival of my Uncle Rusty and Aunt Dorla. The two had traveled for about half a day to reach us, much to my dismay without the company of their children. We decided to try the new Mexican restaurant in town. We walked in, sat down, had a few laughs, and exchanged some of the most ridiculous conversation I've heard in ages. It isn't until you sit seven people with almost completely conflicting ideologies at one table and cloak the conversation in the respect rightfully due close friends and relatives that you realize just how much of a ticking time bomb opinions really are.

Though the conversation was bright, full, loud, intelligent, ridiculous, brutal, funny, simple...the most enjoyable thing about the evening was watching the subtle discomfort grow on the faces of each individual whose opinion was challenged both with the in-your-face bluntness of my mother and uncle and the "I think you're crazy but am too polite to speak on the matter" nature of my grandfather and aunt. Again, trying to keep tongues sheathed as a polite course of action is the respectable manner of treating anyone with special emphasis given to family and friends. Sitting, waiting, and wondering who would break the ice with the jab that stuck was an adrenaline packed frenzy fest. It was, to use a remarkably humorous southern expression, "a hoot."

But I digress.

The food was very good. The El Acapulco restaurant had opened less than a week prior and none of our friends had given word on the food. It was so good--and the town is so small--that our frequent return visits have the waiters calling to us by name, taking our orders in several languages, and laughing with us about some of the more bold events that have gone on in that restaurant.

And that's just immediate family.