Meal on the town leads to sisterly spat, bad karma

It’s been said that the road to hell is paved with good intentions. And while I wasn’t in hell last Sunday, I would have traded my curse-worth quandary for a date with the devil himself.

Well … maybe not.

Point being, I was in a predicament, perhaps the closest kind to hell on earth — a family feud.

“Can we eat out for lunch?” my sister Audrey asked that morning during a visit home.

“Yes!” I agreed. “And let’s leave early enough to beat the lunch rush.”

“Well, we’ll miss church,” my guilt-laden Mama sighed. “But hopefully the good Lord will forgive us.”

And so it was settled. Or so we sisters thought, until Mama approached us later at the breakfast table.

“Sweetie,” Mama said as she stroked my sister’s hair. “Would you rather I fry up some chicken for lunch?”

“No,” I replied, barging into the mother/favorite daughter conversation.

“Well, what if I picked up something from town?” Mama then asked, naming every drive-through restaurant in Henderson.

“I thought we’d already discussed this?” I interrupted Mama once more. “Why are you making this so difficult?”

“I’m just offering some suggestions!” Mama sharply replied, causing a fear-induced shiver to shoot straight up my spine.

Suddenly Audrey spoke, ending the dispute.

“Mama, I’d rather go out to eat.”

And with that, my mama morphed into a modern day Jekyll and Hyde.

“Yes, my darling. We’ll do whatever you want.”

Audrey soon excused herself from the kitchen table, leaving Mama and me to finalize our plans.

“Let’s leave at 11:30,” I suggested. “That way we’ll beat the church crowd.”

“That sounds good,” Mama replied. “Just make sure that works for your sisters.”

Mama then moseyed to the bathroom to begin her morning make-up regime.

“Be ready at 11:30!” I bellowed out to Audrey while dialing our oldest sister Wendy with the same message.

“11:30?” Wendy answered the phone with a yawn. “I don’t think I can make it that early.”

“Well, wake up and get ready!” I ordered.

And that’s when all hell broke loose in the Eaves’ family living room.

“Give me that phone!” Audrey said as she stormed into the room. And after jerking the phone from me, she asked Wendy: “What time can you meet?” Some back and forth bickering ensued since no time seemed to please my sisters and me.

“We need to compromise!” Audrey snapped. “Gina can’t always have it her way.”

“I’m just trying to avoid the church crowd!” I hollered back. “You know how long that buffet line gets.”

“We’ll be fine,” Audrey huffed. “Let’s leave Epsom at noon.”

Our morning spat settled, I sauntered upstairs and into Mama’s bedroom.

“I can’t believe Audrey!” I whispered, apparently breaking Mama’s first commandment: “Thou shalt not slander your perfect sister.”

“No, Gina,” Mama rebuked. “I can’t believe you.”

Being the middle child, I’m accustomed to such abuse. So I forced myself to comply with the mother/favorite daughter coalition and kept quiet. That is, until we reached our restaurant of choice, where the church crowd had already resumed its Sunday morning fellowship at its many tables and booths.

“Hey Mama, isn’t that the preacher?” I asked, spying our Methodist minister in the popular pizzeria’s buffet line.

And as the pastor made her way to our table of church-skipping sinners, I whispered to my mortified Mama and Audrey:

“You know, we’d have missed the church crowd if you’d listened to me.”