EPISODE 9 EPISODE 9Each summer our extended family of eleven squeezed into a 1970s beach cottage that slept ten uncomfortably. Like one of those bad reality shows, our annual vacation on the Outer Banks of North Carolina began with a chaotic dash for the good beds. Suitcases exploded, turning the previously tidy old cottage into a veritable landfill. Floors became littered with swimsuits, towels, and toys; countertops with soda cans, chips, sunglasses, lotion, shells, coffee cake, peanuts, and sticky spots from spilled daiquiri mix.
The cast of our reality show included me, Francis, and our three kids; my mother, Diane, affectionately called Maz the Spaz; my brother Tray, his Canadian wife, Jacqueline, and their three children. Tray and Jacq raised a fit family of type-A personalities who aggressively and successfully fought for whatever life had to offer. Francis and I, both a bit soft and squishy literally and figuratively, raised our kids to be B-plus personalities, who appreciated eccentricities and a reasonable level of mediocrity.
Our combined six kids brought goofy exuberance, infuriating sass, angsty brooding, attention-seeking, and plenty of whining to the table.
Adding to family tension among the cast, my cantankerous father Durwood and his second wife Sherri retired to a house a few blocks away from the cottage, and a myriad of other odd relatives would drop in to visit while we were there. Consequently, the drama of our annual vacation was more akin to The Perfect Storm than Beach Blanket Bingo.
Even though the size of the beach cottage we occupied necessitated us being physically close, we all tried to avoid learning intimate details about each other during our shared vacation time. For the first few days we maintained a façade of virtue, cleanliness, and self-control. However, after two weeks, awkward personal secrets were inevitably revealed, the crude realities of life exposed.
Toiletry bags in the shared bathrooms divulged our need for embarrassing pharmaceuticals, such as stool softeners and anti-fungal ointments. Meals together revealed whether we put too much mayonnaise on our sandwiches, dipped into the chips every couple of hours, or got caught taking another brownie from the pan. When we dozed off on the couch, everyone saw the unflattering ways our mouths fell open and chins multiplied when we slept. And commingled laundry allowed everyone to bear witness to the sometimes-alarming size of some of our undergarments.
“Whose are these?” Jacq said one day, laughing and holding up a large pair of underwear from a basket of warm laundry. Voices rang out from around our beach cottage.
“Whoa! Not mine!” came from the couch.
“Me neither!” broadcasted from the staircase.
“Mine aren’t THAT big!” emanated from the hallway.
“Uh, yeah,” I admitted sheepishly, “those would be mine, thank you very much.”
I claimed my stack of folded clothes and slunk off to my room.
This kind of humiliation was just part of the family vacation experience. Whoever volunteered to fold clothes would become privy to the size of everyone else’s underwear, setting up perfect opportunities to crack jokes. Admittedly, my Jockeys “For Her” were ample enough to fold over several times, while my thinner relatives’ teensy-weensy skivvies were constructed with so little material, I once mistook a pair of my niece’s underwear for a hair scrunchie.
When vacationing with my relatives, harassment, browbeating, rude sarcasm, and relentless needling fell under the category of playful banter. My family considered these personal pot shots a kind of vacation-time sporting event, like cornhole or ladder ball.
Over the course of my summer beach vacations—when one of my relatives said the mole on my chin looked like it was growing an eye or offered to put Metamucil in my daiquiri to help out with my “little problem,” or imitated my dance moves to make the cousins laugh—I learned the best plan was to let it go and laugh along.
And, most importantly, always fold my own laundry.