Nine o’clock in the morning. Slap that snooze button, I need sleep.
My father barges into my room – Asian parents don’t know what know what knocking is, privacy is an idea lost on my family.
“Hurry! Get up! Aunty said to meet us at dim sum!” He hurriedly rushes around my room opening the blinds to let that piercing summer light strike my bedroom walls. I am annoyed but simply grunt in response and pour myself out of bed and ooze into the washroom. My brother and sister are already crowded around the sink, vigorously brushing their teeth and combing their hair to look presentable to our relatives. The relatives that we see every weekend.
My father’s sister, brother, and two cousins and their families all meet at 10 in the morning in front of my driveway. It’s way too early to be making so much noise.
11 o’clock and we drive into Richmond, five cars creeping down the highway, chasing after time I sober up and text my cousins, complaining about how we were going to be wasting a perfectly sunny morning cooped up in a dirty, messy waiting room to find a table for 18, to eat greasy, Chinese breakfast.
As we wait for our seats, my entire family taking up all of the space and other guests shoving me in places I shouldn’t be shoved, I lightened up and joked along with my cousins. We went outside and talked in a circle, catching up on the events of the week and pushing and shoving each other for fun. Maybe it was nice to see family sometimes.
It is now noon and the hostess shrieks our number out – time to talk over each other and see who could speak the loudest and the most. Time to reach over each other and grapple the Lazy Susan for a chance at the best pick. Time to eat, converse and to be a family.