Cunningham 1

Classification Essay
Lindsay Cunningham
Block 3A
October 30th, 2015
Lindsays Declassified Reunion Survival Guide
Three hundred and sixty five days. Thats how long its been since youve seen your
family. Three hundred and sixty five days since youve had to sit through the endless formalities
of a family reunion. The car tires crunch over gravel as they make their entrance into your aunts
driveway. Youre definitely not looking forward to this family reunion. The only comfort that
you have is knowing that other families are just as weird as yours, and can easily be classified
into their own separate niches. Your mission is to get through the day without having to sit
through any uncomfortable small talk or mundane stories. The only way that youll be able to
survive this reunion is by avoiding the Smotherers, the Stragglers, the Drunkles, and the worst of
them all, the Stale-Story aunts.
As you walk up to the large, wood paneled door, it swings open, revealing an endless
array of relatives waiting to greet you. A mob of aunts crowds the doorframe, waiting to pounce.
Before you step through the doors threshold, youre swept up into your aunts arms. The hug
that she gives restrains any possible movement. You gasp for air while trying to find oxygen
somewhere in the thick forest of her perfume. The other aunts crowd around you, immediately
pelting you with an endless list of questions. Where are you going to college? one inquires.
How are your grades? says another. Finally, the boldest one says Do you have a boyfriend?
The Smotherers collapse into a sea of Hyena-like cackles as they prepare more questions to fire

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at you. They ask more questions than you can give answers to, wanting to know every possible
thing they couldve missed in the past year. You push passed them, searching for an escape.
A face that you vaguely recognize crosses into your line of sight. Have you met? Are you
related? Youre not completely sure. These are the Stragglers, the relatives that you cant
recognize but know that you know. The typical Straggler is towards the back of the Smotherer
mob, absently standing alone. They try to ask questions like the Smotherers, but dont know
enough about you to do so. So youre in college? they say. Um, no Im not you
uncomfortably reply. The dead air between you and the Straggler gets thicker as they search for
something more to say. They ask an assortment of awkward questions, trying to form some sort
of small connection with you. You spend the whole time trying to place their face in your mind.
A great aunt? Second cousin twice removed? Youre clueless. All you know is that you dont
know who this is.
Cheers erupt from the living room as the television blasts the latest news from ESPN. A
semicircle of Barcaloungers surround the flat-screen, each seat filled with a baseball-cap clad,
football-enthusiast uncle. You observe as your uncles alternate between sipping their beers and
exchanging remarks about the latest play. These are the family members that you have
affectionately deemed Drunkles, because the only activity that youve seen them engage in is
the systematic sipping on Coronas. Your uncle skillfully dips his hand in a bowl of Chex Mix,
using the same instinctive grazing style as an antelope. The herd of Drunkles are always there at
family reunions, but simply drift in and out, only choosing to communicate with their pack.
Youve tried having a conversation with a Drunkle before, but it ended quickly due to your
barren lack of football knowledge.

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You continue your quest towards the kitchen, hoping that chewing something will
absolve you of your responsibility to talk to your relatives. No. Your eyes widen and cheeks flush
as you find your worst nightmare standing across the room; Aunt Josephine. Your eyes dart
around the tiled kitchen, searching for an exit, hoping to dash out of the room before youre seen,
but its too late, youve been spotted. Aunt Josephine is the worst of your stale-story aunts;
notorious for her boring, infinite stories. Last years was about how she filed her tax returns. The
year before that was about her exciting experiences in Food Lion. Aunt Joe draws closer,
beginning to tell a story about the new delivery man in her neighborhood. The words that escape
her paper-thin lips fill your ears with agony. You know that shes telling a story, but all you can
really hear is the wawaw-wawaw-wawaw of a Charlie Brown cartoon. Every family has an
Aunt Josephine, or maybe even a few. Its easy to identify the stale-story aunts of the world by
their outrageous number of cats, everlasting stories, and suffocating smell of old mothballs.
Sighing, you sit down across from Aunt Josephine, comforted by the fact that you wont
have to listen to another monotonous story for another year. Besides, if you can survive one of
Aunt Joes stories, you can probably survive anything. That night, you leave the reunion with a
sense of appreciation for your family. You dont love the Smotherers, Stragglers, Drunkles, and
Stale-Story Aunts in the traditional way. You love them because they teach you how to be patient
with others. As your car leaves the gravel driveway, you reflect on your day, thankful that you
successfully made it through another family reunion.