Writing Resources from Fifteen Minutes of Fiction

A Rent in the Family Dynamic

Can you think of a better way to spend a summer week than with your family in a cabin located in a lush mountain glen? As I look back and if given the choice, I maybe would have preferred Death Valley or maybe even a week at Gitmo. I swear I now know I'd rather have a week of water-boarding or what other tortures they use there than spend a week cooped up with my family.

Until that torturous week I had never realized how opinionated my sister has become, and her husband, well let's just say I had better not discuss him in a forum that frowns on swear words. As for my parents, I will never understand their actions during my week of unleashed torment. My parents, pillars of the community, god fearing, church going Christians and yet before my very eyes they would not back their son in a fight to protect long established procedures and practices. Father claimed he was merely trying to keep peace in the family and I understand mother believes in backing father but sometimes you have to draw a line in the sand, stand your ground. Once you start ignoring the very laws of nature, the delicate fabric of society begins to fray and before you know it, chaos breaks out and the barbarians take over.

I know that you want to find out what happened and I want to tell you, let me just find my wits and see if I can keep a civil tongue in my head. It all started as the idyllic week that we planned, it was so nice to see mom and dad. The kids love my sister, even more so after they received the presents she brought them, of course, I realize now they were merely bribes to try to get them on her side. Even the neanderthal, no I shouldn't call him that because it insults a whole species that deserve better than to be linked to him, that married my sister was nice enough to take my boy fishing on the stream by the cabin. It all went south when my sister announced that she had just put on the last roll of toilet paper and she hoped we more somewhere (of course, I had more, I'm always prepared). I thought nothing of it until I went to use the facilities and noticed the toilet paper had been put on the dispenser backwards, you know, with the paper unrolling from under the roll instead of over the roll, as it should be. I knew it had to be merely an oversight by my sis, and simply changed it to the correct way. Later as we all sat down to lunch, I innocently mentioned to my sis that I corrected her faux pas and to not worry about it.

You would think that after all these years of living with my sister I would know her but believe me I never knew the woman sitting across from me at lunch. I can only blame her, I am trying to keep control, her husband (the only civilized term I can use for him) for somehow corrupting her and bringing her to the dark side of civilization. As god as my witness I swear to you this as fact, right there in front the family my sister, my only sibling, who shares my DNA had the gall to say,
"Oh no that wasn't a mistake; I prefer the roll placed with the paper unwinding from beneath."

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