As with all close families, mine holds to several bizarre but sacred habits and rituals. The kind that one couldn’t begin to guess how they started but have remained steadfast and woven into the tapestry of our lives. I’m not talking about dinner around the table or shared bedtime prayers, though we had those as well. The one I most favor is our proclivity to come up with endless questions, trivia, and scenarios to present to our siblings and parents.
I’m sure we’re not unique in this regard. Trivia has been a beloved pastime for generations, and in more recent years, the concept of “conversation starters” has broadened its scope outside of company conferences and high school theater classrooms. But I like to think that we were pioneers of this particular form of entertainment.
In the beginning, we had no cards or books to guide the way. I can’t count the number of times we’ve all answered the question, “What would your patronus be?”
No one supplied us with the right questions to ask to get the ball rolling, we simply dreamed them up as we went, inspired by whatever was on the television or the latest books we had all read. Nowadays, you can buy entire board and card games dedicated to interesting questions and debatable topics. I hear them on podcasts and interviews. Typical questions begging after a celebrity’s morning workout routine are replaced with queries like, “would you rather fight one horse-sized duck, or one hundred duck-sized horses?”
I put that particular question to my family not long ago, and it sparked an argument that lasted nearly twenty minutes. It was a warm day in early fall, and we were sitting out on my parent’s back porch to enjoy the sunshine.
Most of us answered correctly, stating that we would rather go to battle with the tiny horses, whereas my brother chose to go head-to-head with the single, massive waterfowl. I find this to be a ludacris suggestion, because I’ve known him my entire life and I don’t believe for one second that he’d try to fight an average-sized duck, let alone one the size of a horse.
After much debate, my father cut in with the most crucial question of all.
“Why do I have to fight it?”
This effectively ended the argument, revealing our true colors with poignant clarity. Both horses and ducks are relatively docile creatures at any size, so why on earth would it occur to us to fight them?
“Because that’s the question,” I explained, with a touch of exasperation. My sides ached with laughter and a cool breeze brushed across our faces that were red with pure merriment. There wasn’t a drop of alcohol in sight, but anyone listening in would have assumed we were all two kegs deep into a Sunday afternoon.
As the conversation morphed and carried us seamlessly from one topic into the next, it occurred to me that my father didn’t follow up with the greatest riddle of all–why are we asking each other these questions in the first place?
As far as families go, we know each other as well as anyone could hope to. We have spent countless hours at this point prying into the inner workings of each other’s minds, but somehow, they still manage to surprise me. And even if they don’t, they can still find a way to make me laugh so hard I cry. On the weekends I know that I’m going to be with my family, I preemptively take an ibuprofen knowing that I’ll end up with a headache before the end of the night, brought on by the high blood pressure of unbridled glee.
I can, and with any luck, will one day write an entire book about these four people who shaped my upbringing. It’s the kind of thing you only write for yourself, but how else can I memorialize this kind of affection? Like I said, there’s no doubt that there are other families like ours. The kind that doesn’t just serve as the people that you scream at over Thanksgiving dinner. But something more akin to a club. A real crew that came into being by virtue of being alive and in close proximity to one another. Our unique traits do not set us apart. Rather, they are the joints between the limbs of the singular creature, The Savage Family.
There was no vacation to Disneyland. No Caribbean cruise. There were a few camping trips, but I think there’s a lot to be said for a group of people that want nothing more than to just be in each other’s company.
“What object would you put into a time capsule to be opened fifty years from now?” I asked my brother a few weeks ago. We were parked on my parent’s couches, watching a football game and catching up on the last few weeks.
“A mask,” my brother answered. “I’ve held onto the reusable one I wore during Covid. I think that would be cool to show off to the younger generations.”
My dad immediately rattled off the model, make, and year of some classic car that my brain couldn’t hold onto, and as it always does, the question deteriorated. This one into a debate on what constitutes a “capsule”, which in my father’s mind, might be roughly the size of a garage. Voices rose, and the giggling that never seems to end when I’m in their company, bubbled up in the room.
I chose a fidget spinner because it’s equal parts brilliant and ridiculous. But if I had the chance to answer again, I’d have chosen all of them. I’d have them shrunk down to pocket-sized companions and built apartments for each one right there in that time capsule, preserving them perfectly at that point in time. I may become old and gray, but they would remain as they are now. If what we put in a time capsule is meant to represent what was significant in the world, I can think of nothing more appropriate.
They make up all that is good. Personal interaction and collaborative conversation. Stories shared and retold so many times that it almost doesn’t matter if we were all present. If one of us was there, we all were.
When the talk wanes into something resembling a brief lull, I get impatient. Not because the quiet is uncomfortable, far from it. But because I want to take advantage of every opportunity I have to build ever-more bridges between us until it’s solid ground. A nation of weirdos that is uniquely our own.
“Ask me something,” I demand.
My brother pauses, looking down for a moment, then back up at me. “Which candy would you take from Willy Wonka’s Chocolate Factory?”