SYNDICATED COLUMNIST
You know how it is when the weather gets cool. The leaves change colors. The birds start to migrate. And out of the clear blue sky, your family drops a bomb on you.
Not a literal bomb. We fight like every other family, but none of us use lethal weapons. Yet.
During a perfectly nice dinner where everyone at the table was peacefully staring at their phones, the female wing of the family launched a barrage.
“We're not spending enough time together as a family,” announced my sister.
I didn't see what the problem was. We'd done lots of family stuff.
Once, I'd gone hiking while Dad sat in the car. Another time, my sister and Mom read books in the same room.
And I fondly look back on the day when we all gathered around the television and thought about work.
All right, so we weren't all sitting together watching TV. But at least we were on the same floor.
Or in the same house. Or on the same continent... maybe? Dad might've been traveling that week.
A second after my sister's announcement, Mom took a newspaper clipping off the fridge and waved it at us. It advertised a corn maze. Or maize maze. Or something.
My eyes slid from parent to sibling. They'd been collaborating.
Neither Dad nor I could come up with a counterattack. And that's how at 7 p.m. that evening, we found ourselves, as a family, plunging into a corn maze.
You know that scene in “The Shining” where a madman chases a kid with an ax through a maze?
The madman has the ax, not the kid. Either way, it's not a comforting picture.
So when I turned a corner and saw a pumpkin carved to look like Jack Nicholson, you'll understand why I tried to leap out of the maze then and there.
My graceful leap ended with me shaking kernels out of my collar. Corn is pretty tall. And though I'm a pretty good jumper, I can't clear 27 feet.
We stumbled on, following Dad's strategy of always turning right. This way, we'd be sure we weren't repeating paths.
The plan worked fine until we realized we were caught in a circle. Behind me, somebody murmured, “Aw, sheaf.”
As it got darker and colder, I started to wonder if we were still in the maze or if we'd broken into the sweeping cornfields beyond. Some of the paths we had taken had seemed a little narrow.
That one shot from “The Shining” where Jack Nicholson is frozen flashed through my mind.
We stopped to think. Rather, my family stopped to think, and I stopped to panic. Then we heard voices.
Somewhere to our left was a lantern. The smell of apple cider and donuts wafted through the air. There it was: a path out of the maze!
We waltzed into the open air, feeling pretty good about making it to the end. Then we realized it was the entrance. We'd gone in and out at the same place.
My sister was all for going back in and finishing the maze properly. I suggested a horror movie. Dad wanted to get cider and donuts. Mom was already walking toward the car.
So we had a good time together, but our interests remain different. And that's okay.
Besides, even when everyone is doing their own thing, I'm not alone. I've got my Jack Nicholson pumpkin.
