"I wanna be living, for the love of you~"
You've been staying at home for the week, all in preparation for the big day, and still the reasoning behind every person over 45's ability to be up at the crack of dawn after being up all night playing cards eludes you. It's ridiculous, it's asinine, and it's frankly a little inconsiderate to wake the neighborhood and all its inhabitants with some old Isley Brothers tracks. It's barely even 7 AM and you can already smell the Joop cologne creeping into your old bedroom from the bathroom next door, and you're glad to have showered the night before. The bathroom will definitely be held up until Christmas if your father can help it.
Stretching, you admire the smell of food cooking downstairs and wonder when did the Fourth of July become such a big deal around here. Outside of the obvious, there are exactly two aunts and two cousins on both sides of the family celebrating birthdays this week and every year your parents host this huge cookout in the empty housing plot across the street. It was theoretically there for someone looking to move into the subdivision to build on but it's been such a summer staple around these parts that the complex leaves it as is. Grills, inflatable playthings, loud ass cars rumbling somewhere nearby; it's tradition.
Tradition is tiring, though, and you can only really handle this much family once a year.
You could do without the annual problematic ranting from one of your drunk old head relatives. It's a game of russian roulette to engage in conversation with anyone over the age of 40 during a cookout.
Even so, lazing around in bed won't prolong the inevitable, so you jump to your feet, spooking the family pit bull, Zeus. He's a blue, mixed with something or other to give him a little more length to his legs but that big ass head is True Pit. Only one of his ears is cropped, a process interrupted by your theatrics in high school. Zeus was a puppy then, crying pitifully at the homemade cosmetic surgery being done by your uncle and you'd damn near killed yourself trying to stop it. As if these neurotic babies need another reason to look tough from assholes in the neighborhood trying to flex with ill taken care of pets.
His collar jingles loudly as he moves around the bedroom, and you're still half asleep on your way out the door. You get caught sneaking food by your mom, who pops you on the hand with a wooden spoon without missing a beat. She's bopping around the room as if you're not even there, throwing ingredients into pans and reheating others in the oven. Usually your family is in unofficial charge of cold pasta salads and the more healthier sides, but you note that everything bubbling on the stove contains at least a half a pound of lard.
After letting Zeus outside into the backyard you're almost immediately accosted by a slew of younger cousins you hadn't even noticed. The two youngest (and baddest), Mya and Cortez, latch onto your legs like little dead weights that nearly send you mouth first into the kitchen table. Their mother, your oldest first cousin, shoots you a hello before impatiently shouting for her kids to sit down somewhere. It's definitely too early to deal with everyone so for now you resolve to disappear into your temporary room upstairs to get dressed.
It's not until your friends and honorary cousins, Kayla and Sydney, come barreling into your "bedroom" that you again remember what today is. It's the fourth of july, a time for eating rich food, checking out the neighborhood boys that come through, and listening to your older relatives wax poetic about how rap is 'causing the decline of black youth'. The thought of last year's rant (innocently brought on by a kid humming to Kendrick), makes you laugh as you fix the last gold clip into one of your hanging box braids.
Kayla, in all her aggravating glory, starts pinching your butt in the denim cut offs that will for sure make your dad pop a blood vessel. "Where the hell are you going in these, young lady?"
