Bradley refused to swim because the lake had “fecal coliform counts.” He wouldn’t eat the fried catfish because it was “unnecessarily greasy.” And when I finally got him to sit on the dock with his feet in the water— just his feet —he looked at me and said, with the gravity of a Supreme Court justice, “You know, your accent makes you sound like you have a learning disability.”
We grew up in the sticky, kudzu-choked humidity of central Georgia. He grew up in a gray, tastefully expensive suburb of Boston. And every summer, his parents would ship him down to my grandmother’s farm for two weeks of “family connection.” Those two weeks were my annual descent into hell. My Only Bitchy Cousin Is a Yankee-Type Guy- The...
“Your oregano is expired,” he announced on his first visit, holding the jar like it was a dead rat. “And the way you store your olive oil next to the stove is degrading the polyphenols.” Bradley refused to swim because the lake had
My grandmother just smiled and said, “Well, bless his heart. He gets that from his father’s side.” “Your oregano is expired,” he announced on his