Family Home Evening

Well, today is Monday and all you Mormons know what that means, time for good ol' Family Home Evening. (Or F.H.E., if you're feeling spiffy.) Anyway, before I left for work this morning, my mother reminded me to be home tonight for the yet-to-be-decided family evening activity. I anticipated it would be another rousing game of soccer in the park or perhaps we would gather around the table for a friendly board game.
I was sorely mistaken.
6:30 P.M. rolls around and I pull up outside the house in the classy 1995 Toyota Previa. Ever since my trusty Cam-Cam (Camry) was mutilated and hauled off to the junk yard, the Previa and I have been forced to spend a lot of time together.
As I rolled up the windows and gathered my stuff, I took note that our only remaining respectable vehicle (the Sequoia) was absent from the driveway.
I began to wonder.
Did they leave without me? Did my mom run off to the store to get some missing dinner ingredient? Was there an emergency? Is my father's leg dangling from his hip, connected by only a few remaining strips of skin as he screams in agony with the entire family surrounding him in the emergency room? Why didn't they tell me?
But upon the friendly greeting I received from my mother at the doorway, I concluded that every single one of my hypotheses were wrong. And ridiculous.
"Where's the car?" I asked.
"Sit down for dinner and I'll tell you the story."
Intriguing. So I sat.
"I got a call today from the neighbor."
"Yeah?"
"She was asking if Mitchell wanted to go with her daughter to the American Idol concert tonight."
"What?! Does he even know the daughter?"
"No, but I know the mom. She asked if he could drive, so I told him he could take the car."
"Oh.Why did the daughter want to go with Mitchell??"
But as I asked this question the answer was already clear in my mind. Good looking people have all the luck in life.
"Mitchell doesn't even like American Idol that much," I muttered as I squeezed a lemon slice over my salmon.
But this was only the beginning of the unsatisfactory news.
Dinner finished and I asked what the activity was going to be.
My sister shook her head in sorrow and shot me a pained expression. My mother got that smile on her face that she gets when she's about to tell me something I'm not going to like.
"We're going to the cemetery."
"Yay!!!" my youngest brother Lance yelled in delight.
It immediately became clear to me why we were going to the cemetery.
"Why does Lance want to go so bad?" I asked.
"To visit Grandma Gayle's grave," my mother replied innocently.
"No!" my sister broke in. "The real reason is he wants to go dig up dead people to see what they look like!"
Lance gave me a smile that was trying to look innocent, but failing. Miserably.
"What the heck? That's creepy Lance!"
"I just want to see!"
"We're not really going to dig, Lance," said my mother.
"Yes we aaaare!"
Oh dear.
So we all piled into the ancient Previa, since the respectable vehicle was out on the town having a grand time doing normal activities.
Then we pulled up to the cemetery.
"Yayyy! I can dig!"Lance said as he bounded out of the car.
What is wrong with this child?
"No, we're not going to dig Lance."
"Whhhyyy?"
"Because it's a federal offense, that's why."
Luckily, he eventually calmed down about the whole digging idea, but that didn't stop him from literally dancing on random stranger's graves, straddling tombstones, and pretending to be dead every five minutes. I'm pretty sure there is a small crowd of severely offended ghosts that followed us home and will begin enacting their revenge any moment now.
When we finally reached Grandma Gayle's grave, he squatted down and started petting the tombstone and speaking softly to it.
"Grandma Gayle, are you there? Grandma Gayle, come out," he said in his sweetest, most coaxing voice. "Come out Grandma Gayle, come out so we can see you."
"She's not going to come out, Lance."
He looked crestfallen at the tombstone.
I don't know where this obsession with death came from, but it's beginning to creep people out. Including me. It's a phase though. And just like the other 10,000 obsessions he has harbored, it too will pass. At least that's what I tell myself.
A while later, we all piled back into the dinosaur van and ended the evening with 59 cent ice cream cones from Arctic Circle, a true sign of a classy family.
Slaughter family dignity by parading around town in the Dino-mobile? Check.
Disgrace and dishonor the dead? Check.
Overall, I'd say it was a pretty successful family night.