Synaptic Snaps, Crackles & Pops

Shades!

September 25 Prompt: There's going to be a family gathering. Aunt Bessy is on her way. Uncle Clyde is too. One is bringing sweet-potato pie, the other ham-hocks and greens. Everyone is excited... but Aunt Bessie and Uncle Chuck haven't spoken in 20 years. Tell us what happens at this gathering.


Nana Deanna had been smart to keep the news of Aunt Bessie and Uncle Chuck's individual promises to attend from the other one, and had almost had to lie to do it. For two people who hadn't spoken a word to each other—civil or otherwise—in 20 years, it sure didn't take 'em long to start. Aunt Bessie had just dropped her sweet-potato pie off on the dining room sideboard, when Uncle Chuck came in from the kitchen.

"You!" they said, almost in unison. They turned around in time to see Nana Deanna take a step backward, apparently beginning to think that 20 years just may not have been long enough.

"Now, Bessie, Chuck -" she began.

"I can't believe you did this to me!" Aunt Bessie cried.

"For cryin' out loud, Bessie," Uncle Chuck said, "it was just a prank!"

"A prank? A prank! Jimmy Joe saw me in my underwear, because you tricked me into not lowering my shades all the way!"

"Jeez, Louise, Bessie! The bra an' drawers you wore back then may as well have been a swimsuit. So what, if he saw you for like two seconds -"

"There were holes in those panties," she shrieked, "and I was in the middle of throwing them out! He saw everything!"

There was dead silence, and time seemed to stop. Nobody knew whether to look at Aunt Bessie or Uncle Chuck, so the floor got a lot of attention.

Finally, Uncle Chuck said, "Oh. I, uh...I never knew that, Bessie. Jimmy Joe never did tell me why he ran off like he did."

"Well, he sure told the rest of his friends! Every time one of them passed me in the halls, it was "Hole-y" this and "Hole-y" that. I could barely show my face at school at all!"

"I'm sorry, Bessie. I didn't -"

"Sorry? You're sorry?!" And she was off on the longest tirade I ever did hear, and I've heard more than a few.

Finally, Uncle Chuck stormed out of the house, jumped into his beat-up, green Olds 88 and took off, leaving a cloud of dust hanging in the hot summer air. At least he left his ham-hocks; no one in the family cooks 'em like Uncle Chuck, not even Nana Deanna. She suspects he flavors 'em with moonshine, but I'm of the blackstrap molasses persuasion.

I could've passed on all the yellin' an' name-callin', but Momma raised me to be a practical girl. Him gone left more ham-hocks for the rest of us.