First date with my family

Around Christmas every year, my family on my dad's side has a bowling-and-dinner party. Everyone has a blast, and it usually serves as an initiation for all new "significant others" in the family. It's typically pretty brutal, but once the said boyfriend or girlfriend survives it, they never want to break up because they feel the need to stick around at least to take part in the whipping of the next poor soul to date someone in my crazy family. This year, of course, was no exception.

I really don't know what would qualify as the highlight of the evening, and for this I apologize, because this post may meander a little bit.

There we were, about 25 of us seated in a (secluded, thank God), part of the restaurant. The "cousins" showed up late, so my poor cousin and her boyfriend were seated with the parents - a horrible scenario to be in, because they are particularly bad. There's not just good cop and bad cop; there is crazy cop, drunk cop, what are your intentions cop and I will embarrass you if it's the last thing I do cop.

The cousins are a bit better, we will harrass the poor guy but we know whatever we do is coming to us someday, so we have to behave a little. So the night starts out at dinner fairly tamely, the parents are somewhat behaving (asking immense amounts of questions, confusing him by trying to make him contradict his answers, asking his intentions and then likely accusing him of other intentions, none of which is actually serious but still moderately hilarious), and the cousins are doing things such as shouting his name loudly from across the room and then pretending it didn't happen, so that each time he looks around he thinks he is going crazy. Also, they re-named him after my other cousin's boyfriend (I think her boyfriend may have come up with that himself, actually), so he was mostly getting addressed by a name that wasn't even his. You get the idea.

The climax of dinner was when he made the mistake of revealing that he is capable of singing (he plays the keyboards in a band), and they started asking him to sing. In front of everyone. He looked completely bewildered but, not wanting to back down, reluctantly agreed. I kid you not, his first day with my family, and he sang "Piano Man" by Elton John, in a restaurant, in front of about 25 members of my family in addition to the rest of the customers. After about a verse, my entire family joined in, and it is still by far one of the most hilarious moments in my life. Picture this: you like a girl, she finally introduces you to her family and they insist you sing a song in front of all of them? Yeah, I know. Don't ever ask why I'm screwed up. And it wasn't the only time they made him sing that night, either.

Then we went bowling. Now, bowling is also an adventure. No one in my family actually cares about the rules, winning, or even completing the game. Most of our scores are fairly low, breaking a hundred, maybe, for the best players. The poor boyfriend, of course, plays like any normal person, and scores 223 - around a hundred points better than everyone. From the beginning of dinner he was saying he wasn't good (and really, was he?), so they end up taunting him endlessly about how he destroyed everyone.

To make it worse, my dad got this dancing and singing Christmas tree, which they decided would be the prize for the best bowler. So, they presented it to the new boyfriend, and then made him dance and sing along with it. I know. I'm going to hell. But it was freaking hilarious.

Finally, the insanity was over, and we were all hugging goodbye. My dad hugged me, and then went, fists first, to hug someone else, and ended up punching me in the face really hard. I swore - loudly - and then didn't know what to do because it was obvious I had sworn and I had just been punched in the face, so there I was, doubled over, half laughing, half ready to cry, because it hurt like a bitch, but it was really funny, too.

And that, my friends, is what a typically first date with my family is like. We always try to prepare the poor suckers but really, even if I told you, would you actually believe me?