Raging with Toddlers

You know those hot summer days when your friends make wicked awesome plans? Like someone with divorced parents invites you to their cool lakehouse when their dad isn't there? Or everybody wants to go up the city and tan on North Ave? It's days like this where my clan of pale suburban folk contractually binds me to an event known as "the family party".

Whether its a 1-year-old's birthday they won't remember, some obsolete holiday like Memorial Day, or just no reason at all, my family forces me into these noisy, sweaty gatherings. Don't get me wrong, I love the majority of my family. And I know some of you weirdos are reading this right now saying,

"What? Golly gee! I love my family parties! We all go boating and me and my cool older cousins drink wine coolers and talk about college, or we all sit in our garage eating Italian beef and swapping crazy high school stories. Family parties are just the bees' knees!"

And I feel you, family- loving kid who talks like you're from the 50s, for some people family parties are the best. But unfortunately for me, they are filled with awkward small talk and unpaid babysitting. This is because my father's sperm met my mother's egg at a very inconvenient time for me. They are both the oldest child in their family, and I am their first kid. And their siblings didn't start having kids until I was past my fun, youngster years. So you know that cool, older cousin who talks about booze and plays hip music? Yeah, that's me. Me and brother are the ones responsible for making sure all the other little muchkins are having a bitchin' time. My closest cousin in age is about 10 years old, and after that there's a flock of little ones. I am too old to play "Run Around like Meth Addicts and Tag Each other Haphazardly" with the pants pooping crowd, and am apparently too young and insignificant to be worthy of anything more than small talk with the adults(except for when my Grandma Cyndi gets drunk on champagne at 11 a.m.). If one more random relative ask if my first year of college was fun (duh, how original), I'm going to take these baby quiches and salmon patties and shove them down your middle aged throat.

Not to mention nearly all my cousins are boys, so when they are picking who they want to play Star Wars with, my younger brother wins out. Suddenly, I am the fat kid at camp wearing board shorts and a white tee while everyone else is swimming in bikinis.  (Which by the way, why won't they just let me be Queen Amidala?! There are female characters, you ignorant little assholes)

So on this humid as hell Father's Day weekend , while enjoying a family party yourself, just know I stand with you. I will be suffering too, being sexually assaulted by my baby cousin's toothless,wet mouth. Perhaps I will be hiding in a bathroom, checking Twitter for 30 minutes and faking indigestion.  And if you are one of the lucky ones, who is enjoying a great weekend on the lake with their older cousins who are in bands and take European back-packing trips, be grateful. I will be changing swim diapers, ingesting large amounts of Jewel cookie cake, and listening to my old relatives talk about their lactose intolerance and new medication.

                                       ^what I end up doing a family gatherings, Instagraming pics of me and my 7- year -old cousin after consuming mass amounts of guacamole