I quite frankly hate, cauliflower. I mean, who came up with the concept of this vegetable? It literally looks like a white peice of broccolli and tastes like complete crap. It doesn't even look like a flower, and what the hell is cauli?! Now broccolli in itself is a totally different vegetable and I still don't understand why people hate it. Just steam the crap out of it and there you go, I mean it makes perfect sense to me. Some people just don't get that broccolli is good, like really good. I also really like carrots. They're orange. Orange is cool.
Anyways, this is normally what goes in my head when I am in my aunts vegetarian household. Did I mention that my aunt loves cauliflower? It's like her life, I don't understand that though because as I've mentioned, broccolli is so much better. My aunt likes to think that if I stay with her for the summer, every summer I'll eventually learn to like cauliflower. Which is probably the most bizarre thing I've heard in my life, I mean c'mon who learns to like cauliflower.
Yet last summer was a bit different. Dad died so Aunt Hilda said it was best I stayed with Marie which she only ever calls her sister that to me unless something bad had happened and something bad had happened so I said yes. That summer was one of the worst summers I've ever had. When someone dies you don't want anyone to find out or have it be real; and everyone found out. Dad was the cheif of police and though everyone thought he'd die heroically he didn't. It was a heart attack. At the funeral I saw my Grandpa, who I really only ever saw when something bad happened and since something bad had happened, he was there. Grandpa was crying which was crazy for me because Grandpa never cried, Grandpa told stories about the war, and Grandpa told me it was going to be okay, but Grandpa never cried. Seeing Grandpa told me that things were never going to ever be the same, and they weren't. Grandpa came up to me at the funeral and told me he loved me. I told him the same and then Grandpa was off, Mom said he couldn't stand the funeral anymore.
I think what changed the most for me was being out in public. I'm not popular or anything and I don't really have many friends so being stopped by people in the mall, or book store, or the grocery store was new and got annoying fast. Of course it was to be nice, and I understood that but it was very annoying when you were constantly reminded of your fathers death. One day someone came up to me and straight out asked me if I missed him, I started crying. They said sorry and then ran away.
It got better though eventually, Mom stopped crying, people stopped apolgizing, Aunt Hilda started inviting me over again, Grandpa never called anymore, and I was alone again. It was a good feeling honestly, to be back into the numb feeling of boring lonlieness. I didn't really mind it.
It felt good going back into normality but I guess I was wrong on that too, because it wasn't normal at all. Dad didn't come home everyday and kiss Mom and tell her all about his day. Mom didn't come in at night and tuck me in. Dad never came and picked me up from school anymore on Wednesdays and take me to lunch. We never had Saturday Night Movies on Saturdays anymore, and the worst of all I didn't have a Dad to go to for advice. I miss my Dad a lot, I think my Mom and Grandpa do too. I think that's why they try so hard to be normal. But I know, I know nothing can ever be normal ever again. Not without Dad.
Yet none of this mattered of course this summer in Aunt Hildas house, all that mattered is that I finsihed my god damn plate of god dammned cauliflower. I hadn't touched my food in over ten minutes and Aunt Hilda looked worried
"Dominic. You haven't touched your food in ten minutes, would you please show some respect and start eating?" she said in her worried tone as she patted her mouth with her folded napkin. How freaking polite of her. I love my Aunt really, sometimes.
"Yes Aunt Hilda, sorry" to which I would start to dig in, trying not to gag when the god damned cauliflower. It tastes awful and just tasteless. I can't even begin to say it tastes awful cause it tastes awful. People have just told me to steam it or something like to butter it, but no. Just no, and the fact is my aunt doesn't even like to steam things except broccoli which is good, but even that tastes good not steamed.
After that I told her I'd go to sleep because what was I to do here, there was no tv and all Aunt Hilda did for fun was knit. For her gardening friends, she calls them her gardnies. Why. That is all I ask myself, why. Anyway, sleeping is never something I actually do so I pull out my laptop. When IM messenger finally loads up, which took forever by the way, I look for her name. Melody. I was debating whether I IM her or not, of course Bryce had kept telling me to, saying I need to stop being such a girl and just do it. I said NIKE, Ben, who is the most shy of our whole group spit out his coke all over Bryce. We literally didn't stop laughing for a week. I got detention for laughing so hard. These are my friends. Bryce, the totally jock guy who's not a real jock at all. He sits there and tells me to grow balls to be a real man, talks about himself a lot too. He has the beach boy look, I guess, and wears glasses. He calls them "trendy". Then there's Ben, who literally talks once a week and is only friends with us because we're the only people he can talk to. He has shaggy curly hair, is scrawny and actually wears glasses. Unlike Bryce and likes to call Bryce's glasses "trend-offs". Then there's me. The classic awkward kid, I guess. I don't know, I'm smart but not mega smart. I don't know anything about computers, and I can drink 20 Diet Cokes in an hour, trust me, I've tried. That's our group though, and we're always pulled in different directions. Always.
So of course I didn't click on Melodys profile, I wouldn't anyway I knew that. Everyone knew that. Mostly me, Bryce, and Ben knew that; and just as I was about to put my phone away, my phone rang. It actually rang. This was big news to me because holy crap, my phone never rings. It's an ancient Roman phone that only the anicent Romans use, so 1. I never give my number to anyone except my Mom and my Aunt. and 2. Half of the time it doesn't even ring. Yet it actually rang, so I answered it since it was Mom.
"Dommy! Hi!" she sounded very happy and excited, more than she had in a while I could say. I knew it was fake.
"Hi Mom, what's up, I'm at Aunt Hildas." I say, she never called without the intention of knowing where I was.
"Oh I know sweetie, tell her I say hello, but that's not the point. I never call just to say hello. I'm calling for something more important. Yes." she was rambling, that means somethings either very bad, or very good.
"Is anything wrong Mom, are you okay? Do you want me to come home, I can ask Bryce to pick me up." I say mostly for her, but I wouldn't mind getting out of cauliflower hell.
"Oh Lord no! You stay right there honey. Just your grandfather is coming to stay with us, nothings wrong. I know you think he only comes when theres something wrong" she took a pause, she was right. That is what I thought, but it was a true! "He just needs to stay with us for a while okay sweetie? But I need you to look after him, because I'm starting to work double shifts and overtime and I can't and so if you could-"
"Mom that's fine I'll hang out with the ol' Gramps." I smiled, I like my grandpa, he's an awesome man.
"Oh thank you sweetie! You are such a great son. Anyway much love, and eat your cauliflower! Your Aunt emailed saying you arn't! Anyway, I've got to go to work, I love you, stay safe! Bye Dommy!"
"Bye Mom, I love you too. I will, and she's the cauliflower devil. You told me to not go to hell. So why do you send me here?" I smiled knowing that made her smile. She hung up after that and I put everything away. Grandpa, this was going to be fun.
