The Never Ending Norm

SLAM! The door downstairs literally shook the house, and then I knew… my aunt was pissed off about something. That was just how you knew she was in a bad mood, when doors started slamming in the house, or how you could hear the groan she gives every time she saw how the cat destroyed the house again, or in this case, the constant, normal arguing on the phone with my cousin or just arguing in general whenever they saw each other's happy faces.

The sun cracked in through the blinds and I rolled around in my bed, trying to get up. What can I say? After school naps felt good. I rubbed my eyes open and looked at the clock. It was 5:30, and from the vent in my room, I could hear my aunt arguing in the kitchen on the phone.

“Do you think I like being at the office all day? Don’t you think I want a little bit of time for myself? If you want that box with all the shoes, you come over here and get them yourself. I am not gonna bend over backwards looking for it!... I don’t care, Mar. I am not your personal slave, okay? I… you know what? GOODBYE!”

I laid there in bed and sighed, and decided to get up. I made my way downstairs to the kitchen, walking past her in the hallway. “Excuse me, but what exactly have you done all day since you came home from school?”

I looked backed at my aunt. God, she looked tired. Her orange hair was all out of place in her bun, and the lines in her hazel eyes just seemed to sag. It was rough running a struggling business of your own.

“Um, well, I…”

“You were sleeping, weren’t you? Let me ask you something. Did you get any homework done? Did you clean your room like I asked?”

Great. Now that she hung up with my cousin she had her focus on me.

“If you must know, I finished one assignment for a paper, and cleaned the bathroom, so there. There’s no need to shout.”

“Well, whatever you're, doing save it for later. You need to help me find a box of shoes for your cousin.”

Oh, great… So instead of having my lazy-ass cousin walk over to the next block to our house to get it, we have to. She always does this. My aunt — she’ll argue, she’ll scream, she’ll swear on her life that she won’t ever do my spoiled cousin another favor — and then she’ll do the exact opposite.

“I thought she was coming over?”

She sighed and gave me that look of annoyance she always gets when my cousin got on her last nerve. “Do you really think I want her destroying your room and throwing boxes all over looking for a pair of shoes? No. I’ll do it myself.”

So we did just that. We went upstairs and opened up the storage boards and searched through countless boxes for just one box of shoes. We searched downstairs in the basement as well, and found nothing. As we came back upstairs, we heard the doorbell ring. My aunt looked like the crypt keeper and waved me off to go answer the door. Much to my surprise, it was my cousin, Marlisa. She was in her gym clothes and flip flops and stepped into the house.

“Mother! I just wanted to tell you that I don’t need the shoes. They’re probably not gonna fit anyway. ” She walked into the kitchen and started rummaging through the cabinets in search of food.

The look on my aunts face was hostile. She was livid. “Vicky and I just looked all over the damn house for that stupid box of shoes and now you don’t need them? You know, Marlisa, you're something else.”

My cousin sat down in the chair and sighed obnoxiously. “Sorry.”

I walked up to the kitchen and stood awkwardly in its doorway, the silence just hanging in the air heavy with tension. My cousin scrunched her face with a smirk and smiled at me, and my aunt stared at me with annoyance. I was always the monkey in the middle, and so I broke the silence. “We should all go put happy faces on and get dipped cones at Dairy Star!”

I smiled sarcastically with two thumbs up and my cousin just said, “I’ll drive.”

We both looked at my aunt. She sighed once, then twice, and then a third for dramatic effect, and finally said, “Let me go get dressed.”

I could honestly say it’s always like this. A little screaming and groaning in annoyance here, a little in-person showdown there, and next thing I knew, we were enjoying white chocolate-dipped cones with one another and laughing.

Well, here’s to it then.