I've known Jerry for nearly two years. Just a few days after he and I became an 'official' item, I joined him and his family and friends at a German restaurant downtown to celebrate what was then his twenty-fifth birthday. I wasn't particularly expecting to meet his parents and sister. While I feel that I dressed well, I can distinctly remember mentally kicking myself for not having worn something spiffier (though at the time, I didn't really own anything spiffier) and mentally kicking him for not warning me about his parents.
Now, I will make this disclaimer - I'm not sure he didn't tell me about his family coming. In fact as I type this, I seem to recall the fact that he was unable to pick me up because of the fact that he was picking his sister up in the RX-7 and the convertible didn't have four seats, it only had two since he had started making 'repairs' on it.
Anyways, we met, we chatted, we tried not to be absolutely awkward and afterwards, Jerry, his sister, and I piled in the back seat while his parents climbed into the front of their truck and they drove me home. I don't know where I got the idea but once we reached the house, I asked if they wanted to come in. Some polite etiquette from someone somewhere told me this was what I was supposed to do and I wish I had kept my mouth shut and just said 'Thanks for the lift.' But I of course didn't and my parents had no warning. And that's how Jerry's parents met my parents after just a few hours of getting to know me for the first time.
While it has been nearly two years since that time, there's still that linger dread in seeing them again because of the awkward conversations that are held whenever I'm around. The ones where I'm not quite sure what to say or to what extent or if what I say will make them happy or completely turn them off to me - after two years! Jitters! The saving grace of these shinanigans is the fact that Jerry is always calmly at my side, deflecting when necessary and saving me from the brunt of his mother's repetitive questioning.
Well not tomorrow. No. Today ushers in, as if my weekend hadn't already, my spring break. This week also happens to be the week that his sister had taken off from her job as a nanny and his mother had taken a week off to spend with her daughter from whatever work it is that she does. Well on Sunday, the fact that I was on my spring break slipped out and it was as if his mother could not latch on to the idea fast enough because earlier today I received an invite to go to the mall with them tomorrow. I, of course, said yes because I didn't want to be rude and because Jerry was secretly, and not so secretly, enjoying my discomfort and fretting to him earlier about how I would be alone with his sister and mother. He mentioned that they wouldn't eat me and I told him I wasn't so sure about that.
So tomorrow I get to enjoy for hours their company without my handsome buffer, without his hand rubbing up and down my back comfortingly. I will be left on my own to sink or swim with the womenfolk of his family and I dread it. Not because they're poor company or because they're mean or anything like that - but because sometimes, I speak before I think and backtracking is almost impossible where his mother is concerned...
I'm almost afraid to go to bed because that means that tomorrow gets here sooner... Report to follow tomorrow.
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