I left Indiana some time after 4pm last Friday - after packing up my hotel room, taking a shower, and having a quick bite to eat to finish up the little food I had left in my tiny refrigerator - and I arrived back home some time after 8pm. My original plan was to just go home and relax, but that's not what happened. I knew some of my family was visiting from Georgia and I figured my sister would probably be sleeping before work (if she had to work, I wasn't sure), so I decided to keep on driving a few more miles and pay the family a quick visit. It would be a very quick visit. I didn't want to stay more than hour. I think I did, anyway, but it was a good try on my part.
The visitors weren't around. Actually, no one was around at first except for the grandparents. I talked to my grandmother for awhile and then she tried to get me to watch Burn Notice. Fuck Burn Notice. As I was about to leave, my local aunt and uncle showed up. So, I talked to them for awhile and met my new cousin.
"Do you remember your braces?" My aunt asked me as I looked at the little gnome in his car seat.
"Braces? They come with teeth?" Is what I almost said until I noticed the little boots and straps covering his tiny legs. I had completely overlooked those. No one had said anything was wrong with the child. I just knew there had been some tension because some of the visitors had made some remarks that had pissed my local aunt off and it had gotten to the point where if one more person made fun of her child... Fill in the blank. I honestly hadn't even noticed. I guess I don't really care about babies enough to distinguish much between them or even look to try. But all of this was overshadowed by a new thought in my head. "I had braces?"
"Oh god, yes. Full body cast and braces all over you. You don't remember that?"
"No, I don't. I don't remember most of surgeries either. I remember the last two only." I remember the second to the last most of all since I actually woke up during the surgery. The anesthetic wore off or something. I came out of unconsciousness and freaked right out because I awoke to find myself strapped to a table with masked people surrounding me with horrifying looking surgical tools and this strange futuristic brightness that didn't quite form a room around us. It was shocking and horrifying. I seriously thought I had been abducted by aliens or something. I remember one of the men telling me that I needed to calm down. He told me to take deep breaths and relax. I remember someone else saying that they were going to lose me. That really scared me, because I believed it. Instead of continuing to panic, I took long deep breaths and surrendered to whatever was about to happen. I could have very easily gone into shock and died. Luckily, I didn't. "No. I don't remember most of them. Definitely don't remember the brace. He won't either until you remind him."
"Oh, well that's a relief."
"I suppose."
I left quickly after that moment. I had gathered enough information about the visitors to know not to come back the next day like everyone kept asking me to. The visitors were loading up a rental truck with all sorts of antique (meaning heavy as all hell) furniture and boxes of random fragile bullshit. Not something I really want to be a part of, so I waited until Sunday to return to visit them. I was mostly successful in my attempt to avoid being recruited as free labor. When I arrived, I had a brief conversation with my visiting aunt and uncle. My visiting aunt took her daughter somewhere shortly after that to visit whoever and my visiting uncle recruited my local uncle to assist him in continuing to load the rental truck. My grandmother decided she needed to go grocery shopping since there were plenty of people around to look after my grandfather while she did so. She asked me to go and I did. I didn't even think about it. There's something genuinely unsettling about that house these days. It's mutating into something strange. I can see the very core of it is still the same as I remember, but everything else is different now. Anyway, I definitely wanted to get away from that house.
Shopping with grandmother was sort of fun. She did her shtick where she was to have funny little awkward conversations with everyone that only she understands or finds humorous. These people look to me for guidance or assistance and I just smirk and shrug. I can't help you. Deal with it. Finding the things on the list was entertaining enough because there is a reason for every brand that she chooses and a story behind it. Fascinating stuff. The last item was a cake for grandpa - actually it was more for everyone else, but it was in his honor being Father's Day and all - and she wanted an ice cream cake. Unfortunately, the grocer only had these tiny cheesecakes left. I would have suggested going over to the other town grocer practically across the street, but we don't speak of that place in any close proximity to my grandmother. Not after the great turkey incident of 2005, anyway. So, the cheesecakes were our only option, unless...
I googled Dairy Queen on my phone. The DQ in town had lost its franchise rights due to inability to upgrade equipment and then had been converted into a burger place after no one would return to the newly christened "Dairy Oasis" which still carried all of the same products but with the DQ logos removed. Anyway, the next closest DQ was near the airport and it was only a walk-up concession booth type deal. I didn't think they would even sell cakes, but I decided to try. We were in luck. Not only did they sell cakes, but they had someone cancel an order that had already been completed just a few moments ago and we could have it at a discounted price. Freaking brilliant, I am. The cake was three times the size of the mini-cheesecakes we were looking at and about the same price with the discount. It was perfect.
That was the last perfect moment of that day, of course.
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