Op-Ed
Game Killers
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Awkward Turtle
Awkward Turtle
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At 20 years of age, I was by far the oldest girl in a skeevy bar in Boston. I had maturity, an Ivy League education, a reliable source of income and a leopard print dress on my side. And with a witty pick up line like, “Do you guys feel like you’re swimming in jail bait here?” the boy had no chance. He had to drop digits. And, after three months of uncharacteristic and surprisingly successful game, I had only suffered a few morning-after face-plants and unprovoked sweat-fests, and had redeemed myself with surprise tickets to a Red Sox game. Yes, I was smoother than John Legend in silk drawers, and I had the boy on lock.
That all stopped faster than Lohan’s Mercedes when he came to Buffalo this weekend to meet the Scarselletta clan. As soon as he walked into my house, he turned to me.
“Is that a … a knight?”
“Oh. Yeah. My mom felt bad because my brother didn’t get a sweet 16, so she bought him a sword. It’s about 20 pounds of engraved and decorated steel. And we had a sword case, but we were driving to a basketball game, and we found a six-foot suit of armor on the side of a dirt road. So my Dad put it in the back of the Yukon, and made that rock out of Styrofoam. It’s supposed to look like he’s pulling the sword out of a stone. Oh, and my mom must’ve decorated the knight for St. Patrick’s Day … hence the whole beer-shaped glasses and green Mardi Gras beads thing …”
Dear God. We went upstairs to my sister’s room.
“Yeah, my sister really likes unicorns. Well, not anymore because she’s 25. But when she was younger, my mom bought her a lot of unicorn stuff, like the dolls and the bedspread and the engraved furniture and the windchime. No, that scene from Dodgeball isn’t funny.”
Then off to my brother’s room.
“You’re going to have to sleep here … my Mom’s got this thing about not letting us sleep together. The door locks from the outside so pee before you go to bed. Oh, and if you want to take that gigantic painting of the blue monster eating a kid off his wall, you’ll have to run it by my brother. My mom made that ‘We Love You!’ poster back when she thought he was depressed, but it was only puberty. And that collage of Jesus … well.”
By the time we got to my room, my tank of sex appeal was running on empty.
“Yes. That is a life-size painting of Mickey Mouse on my wall. And Backstreet Boys Posters on my ceiling. And the Math, English and Creativity Awards for my advanced learning classes. And yes, I was in a kiddie-pop acapella group named Opposites Attract.”
And I would understand if you fled to Canada right now.
The rest of the weekend went about as smoothly as an excema-ridden leper-baby’s bottom. I could hardly look at his face when they served Ritz Bitz at my 20-year-old friend’s wedding, or when she jumped on the groom’s back for a turn about the dance floor during “Save a Horse, Ride a Cowboy.” My mom had scheduled a quick novacaine-filled dentist appointment for Sunday morning, after which I returned home drooling and mascara-streaked to find Boston Boy toting two cartons of apples and a red-wagon filled with pumpkins. Ah, yes, mommy dearest had used that alone time to coerce him into apple picking, complete with hay ride and corn maze. And during the obligatory Scarselletta trip to the local haunted house, I, in an adorable display of panic-induced brawn, threw my visitor at a shrieking high school girl, knocking both parties down.
Awesome.
Maybe I should have told him that dating me should come with a first aid kit, or that my family makes Rocky Horror Picture Show look like Breakfast at Tiffany’s. But how do you tell someone that — while other families took roadtrips to the Grand Canyon, you packed your RV with hoop skirts and polyester Yankee soldier uniforms and walked around Antietam dressed like a Civil War Era preteen? How do you confess that you swapped your Game Boy Advance for jacks and your middle school superdances for fake barn raisings?
“My family was hardcore, dedicated members of the artillery unit in local Civil War reenactments. Let’s make out.”
But, as we drove back to Ithaca on Tuesday night, Boston Boy turned to me and said, “I’m glad I met your family. It explains a lot about you.”
OK, so my Dad looks a lot like the Big Kahuna and his main dance move is the Rick Roll; my mom plays Alvin and the Chipmunks Christmas music year round; my sister is a shiny little ball of giggles, medical knowledge and stress, and if you push her forehead too hard, she might explode; and my brother is an engaged accountant who still can’t kick his PS2 habit. I’m nothing like them, but somehow we all fit. My family’s a lot like the framed puzzle I bought at Amvets: a little ridiculous, completely pointless, but pretty well put together.
In retrospect, I wasn’t all that smooth with Boston Boy. I had canceled multiple dates to condition for basketball. I had unmercifully kicked his ass in Wii bowling. I distinctly remember doing late-night barefoot cartwheels with his roommate down the streets of Southie, completely sober. And I definitely had duct taped all of his stuff to the ceiling of his room, mostly because I thought it was funny.
Cornell is a lot like that Boston bar. We all got away from our skinny-dipping parents, our perverted-joke-telling uncles and our sisters who occasionally go transvestite on us. Now we can be ourselves out of the context of the number one game killer: family.
But I’ll throw it out there: I miss knowing people’s families. Nothing is more telling than how someone dances with their families at a wedding; few things are more endearing than hearing how he spent Saturdays cleaning his mom’s fairy collection; and absolutely nothing shows character like beer pong at the family reunion.
Shannan Scarselletta is a junior in the College of Arts and Sciences. She can be contacted at sscarselletta@cornellsun.com. Awkward Turtle appears alternate Wednesdays.