To be totally honest with you, I have almost no idea whatsoever what the story behind Labor Day is. I can only surmise it's a day celebrating us laboring folks but I don't know why it gives us a day off or why it's the first Monday in September. But you know what? I'm not one to argue with a good thing. I got two whole days off in a row and it. Was. Sweet.
On September 7th, my cousin George is getting married to the very awesome Miss Samantha Jo Staggs and for their wedding, the female guests are encouraged to wear Kentucky Derby-style hats to the ceremony. Well, it probably won't surprise you to hear that my sister Emmy and I don't exactly have a closet-full of these decked out hats but Emmy looked 'em up online and found that they can get pretty crazy and creative, and you know what? Crazy and creative is right up our alley. We decided to make our own!
It took a few lengthy trips to Walmart but we finally found passable hats to serve as the canvasses for our creations, plus a whole lot of decorative elements. I want to save the reveal of the hats for the actual ceremony but I will say that the hats came out completely incredible and totally... uh.. unique! Mine is quite gaudy and artsy, but my sister's is pretty much guaranteed to steal the show.. absolutely electrifying :)
So anyway, Em and I spent a good portion of our Labor Day weekend working on said hats at her house. Before we started working on them Sunday evening, we swung by Dairy Queen to get some ice cream first and ate sitting in her living room watching the Syfy channel. (She told me, "I used to laugh at David for watching this channel but now I watch it all the time!")
It was then that the scandal took place.
We were getting a fair bit of rain and Em and David's dog Pickles was inside, along with their two cats, Flo and Beans. Picks always has a ton of energy and likes to run around and play with toys and water bottles and... other things. I was watching TV when Picks shot by my chair, dropping something by my feet. I paid no attention but Em looked down and gasped. I looked down too, and saw... a cat turd, fresh from the litter box.
"Pickles!" Em protested. "Bad dog! You know you can't play with the cat turds!" Picks looked back at her, the picture of innocence. I felt the need to defend her.
"Oh, she was just giving me a present" I said.
Em looked dubious. "It's possible," she conceded, "but I actually think she's trying to blame it on you."
I looked at the turd in question, then the dog. The dog looked back at me with a look that said, "How vulgar! Have you no class?" I frowned.
"You see, she knows all too well that she can't but maybe she figures that you don't come here enough to know the rules. You're the perfect target," she added with a smile.
I couldn't decide if I was appalled or impressed.
This afternoon the Record family had our annual Labor Day picnic. We had it up at The Point, a piece of property where my family likes to shoot guns and eat. Shortly after arriving, my grandma realized she had forgotten something and headed back to her house with my cousin Brian in tow.
They were gone a strangely long time and we began to debate what had happened and where they went.
"She said she was headed to her house..." I began.
"Maybe she meant the Greenhouse," offered my cousin Danny as he dug through a cooler my Grandma had brought, full of cokes and, inexplicably, a tub of butter.
But soon after, we heard the roar of the gator coming up the road. My grandma drove up and began unloading the back of the gator. Brian helped, then approached the table we were sitting at with a strange look on his face and a large dark melon in his hands.
"She said it's a watermelon," he whispered. He set the mystery melon on the table and we all examined it. It was almost exactly the size, shape, weight and color of a bowling ball. The finger holes were the only things missing.
We conjectured for a while about what strange kind of gourd it was, but couldn't come to any conclusions.
After a while we ate dinner, sitting in the shade of great big pine trees at old metal picnic tables that are much older than I am with a light breeze blowing our hair and the edges of the table cloths my grandma had put down. We talked about school and work and Em and I bragged about our kickass derby hats. The sun sunk lower, elongating the shadows. We began to pack up the food and plates.
"Wait!" yelled Dan, and produced a large knife. He grabbed a spare bit of tinfoil and plunked the mystery melon on top of it. With the precision of a surgeon, he made an incision in the melon, carefully and slowly splitting it in two. Then, with a sudden motion, he pulled the melon apart.
"Well, I'll be damned," he muttered.
It was, unmistakably, a watermelon.
It was unappetizingly mushy, though, and instead of dessert, became target practice.
But, teach us to doubt Grandma!
Hope you had a good labor day, too!
Sarah
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