My great aunt Brenda Ann used to visit our house every Christmas and return all the gifts we had given her the previous year. "I hated this," she would tell my mother as Mom unwrapped the Sleeping Beauty VHS cassette that she had fought over with an 8 year old at the Blockbuster bargain bin. "But it was in the 'high-priority' section of your Christmas list," my mother would protest. Brenda Ann scoffed that she would "never make such a thing." Dad opened his gift which turned out to be the hot-pink, cable-knit sweater he had given her last year and Brenda Ann informed him, "it made my skin itch and I HATE pink." Dad chuckled while holding the sweater up to his chest pretending to admire it. She returned the rainbow-colored assortment of Walmart socks to my brother and I as she shook her index finger in our shriveling faces and informed us, "I only wear socks with RUFFLES." She was Mrs. Doubtfire meets Simon Cowell. She wore nude stockings rolled to the knee, tiny pearl earrings and was barely approaching 4'11". She could dust your chandelier to sparkling perfection, rock a baby to sleep with a lullaby, and then tell you to go fuck yourself. My grandmother told us that Brenda Ann was mean-spirited due to a learning disability they were unable to correct when she was younger. Doctors and nurses had given up, claiming she had the cooperation of a feral cat. So, like a good southern family, we pretended as if nothing was wrong and tried to make the best of our time with her.
Our family usually looked to my father for guidance on how to handle these sensitive situations and often times he would take the 'if you can't beat her, join her approach.' One Christmas, after Brenda Ann had returned all the gifts she "hated", my father told my brother and I that we had 10 minutes to go to our rooms and gather all of our gifts from prior Christmases that we now "hated" in exchange for a small surprise later. Together with Brenda Ann's return gifts, we would give them to charities for less fortunate children. I translated the rules to my brother, "We can get MORE new toys if we give back the ones we don't like anymore." His eyes sparkled with excitement as if he already knew which He-man figures he would exile to Goodwill. We grabbed Hefty garbage bags from underneath the kitchen sink and eagerly returned to our rooms like supermarket sweepstakes contestants.
I raced back to the living room with my Christmas has-beens and encouraged my brother to "run faster" once I saw him coming down the hallway dragging his overflowing Hefty bag with a one-eyed teddy bear protruding from the top. We reconvened with Mom, Dad and Brenda Ann. Dad explained more rules of the game, "you must present each toy and explain why you are getting rid of it." I presented my Barbie with the mullet, 3 Breyer horses that had incurred broken legs after losing the Kentucky Derby race in my bathtub, a Cabbage Patch doll with a face that had been half-eaten off by our cocker spaniel, my Fisher Price radio with the Thriller album stuck in the cassette player, and a blue jean skirt my mom loved that I suspected was 3rd grade boy repellent. My little brother presented his toy army tanks that were outdated, explaining he needed airplanes instead. He continued that he had already pulled all the pins on his 12 hand grenades, that hundreds of toy soldiers had been severely wounded after taking a dive off the balcony of our tree house and many more had died in the Battle of the Sand Box. He no longer wanted his OshKosh overalls, the ratty pillowcase he liked to try and stick up his nose that he had been sleeping with since birth or the bag of cotton candy he had been hiding under his bed. Brenda Ann sat on the couch, arms folded in hostility and urged my father to stop mocking her because it was "NOT FUNNY." Only it WAS funny, because Dad was now fully engaged in his 'silent laugh', the one where something is so funny that it takes him ages to make a noise. His face turns bright red, he appears to be struggling for oxygen and just when you think he might pass out, he lets out a sharp, soprano screech, making a sound that could only be rivaled by Italian castrato singers. Even Brenda Ann had to laugh at him.
We all piled into our station wagon and began driving to Goodwill on our gift-recycling mission. My brother and I were in the back seat with Brenda Ann who was still not amused. Dad slowed the station wagon to around 20 miles per hour when we got stuck behind one of the local farm workers driving a truck. We waited for him to notice us driving behind him and hoped he would speed up but instead he continued to lean against the window, lightly crunching on a weed that was blowing in the wind. I half-joked that my brother should give him the finger when we were able to pass. Mom quickly rejected that idea but counter-offered that if anyone should do it, it should be my dad. Then there was a moment of silence where we all realized we might be thinking the same thing. My brother and I shared a few guilty glances with my parents and then we realized that our behavior would be condoned... if no one spoke about it first. My dad turned up the radio while my brother and I strategized in the backseat. Dad, more eager than ever to pass the truck now, finally found a break in oncoming traffic and pushed the gas pedal on the wagon all the way to the floor. He glanced at us in the rear view mirror and my mom stared at the floor in shame as we approached the truck. The preoccupied driver lazily glanced in our direction as we sped past him with Brenda Ann sticking her middle finger out the window as we yelled, "Merry Christmas!"