Memories of a poisoning

I meant to post this entry on the twenty-fourth, but I think I took one nap too many that day. Consider this a belated xmas fable.

Picture, if you dare, a smallish dining room that opens out into a living room. Both rooms are cluttered with doily-draped furniture and bookshelves with books. Many, many creches are set up pell-mell on every available flat surface. Finally, the room is lined with an impossible number of ticking clocks, all set to slightly different times so that each clock can ring solo on every fifteen, thirty, forty-five or sixty minutes. As soon as one welcomed inside, any visitor will feel like they're late for something. Conversations will seem to clock in twice as fast as any normal verbal exchange. Everyone is just a little bit jumpy.

There are ten people crowding around a square dining table. On the table, there are dinner and salad plates, salad forks and dinner forks and two types of spoon. There are water glasses and wine glasses and tiny butter pat dishes. The table is so crowded, there is no room for any food.

It is christmas dinner at my mother's house. The wine flows freely as Mom and, more annoyingly, That Woman race back and forth between the dining room and kitchen with plates of food. The whole time, Mom is talking to us and That Woman is talking to herself. We all sit down at the table as That Woman walks us through every single plate and accoutrement at each place setting. She makes a big big deal over the one and a half inch logs of ugly-ass crystal sitting just below the water glass. These are the new knife rests she purchased at the last Questers meeting. There is a story that goes with them, but like everything else she says, her lecture goes in one ear and out the other, inflicting only minor damage to our ear bones. We hope.

As we eat, That Woman continues to jump up every two minutes to get more plates of food. When she does this, she calls back to specific people to offer them even more food.

"K - can I get you more Jell-O? A - how are we on green beans? Young C - can I get you anything? Anything at all? You can have whatever you want, you know."

(She has an unhealthy fixation on my 13 year old nephew, young C. She once announced at lunch one day how much she "love(s) to watch a young man eat". Ew.)

Her food related hollering mostly focusses on my sisters, occasionally calling to me and my mother. One person she never surveys is The Husband (let's call him "Ernesto").

After coming and going at least 5 times, she finally sits and starts to eat. We sisters and husbands talk amongst ourselves whilst buttering bread, pouring gravy and drinking wine. Suddenly, all heads snap to the head of the table as out of nowhere That Woman clangs her knife against her water glass and hisses,

"Ernesto!!!!! Knife rest!!!!!"

It was one of two sentences she said to him that night (the other instance was a snippy accusation about stealing his own chocolate Santa). Not that he minds that she ignores him. I should be so lucky.

Whenever the husband tells this story, he points out that neither K nor A were using their precious knife rests either, but they probably got a pass due to their role in creating young C.

Shortly after leaving my Mom's, The Husband started feeling a little iffy, which soon turned into a horrible case of what could only be food poisoning.

Coincidence???!? You decide!