It was 2011 in May, I was at a family memorial day cookout. The big topic at the time was Osama Bin Laden getting killed. I had done a lot of reading on it over the few weeks since it happened. I have a lot of relatives who are very forceful in conversations and it usually just ends up being 3 of them battling it out to talk.

The topic was Osama’s body and what the government was going to do with it. They kept going in circles about what they thought the government would do. Apparently they had missed the news about him being buried at sea. I sat there trying to interject over and over and over. Every time I’d spit a word out someone would just talk louder and look at me like I was being rude.

Eventually one of the three says, “Horseband did you have something you wanted to say?” I was stunned and got ready for my moment to shine. “Well, I saw on the news th..” Person #2 just starts ranting, “I HOPE IT WASN’T FOX NEWS! That shit is biased. You know one time \[insert 3 minute story about children selling lemonade to prisoners or something unrelated\]”

I gave up that day on spreading my knowledge. Thanksgiving comes around and I was still pissed about not saying my Osama fact. I kept waiting for the conversation to somehow switch to terrorism or something. Never happened. I finally got a moment to speak and said, “Hey so remember that leader of the Tal.” Uncle immediately shouts, “WHOSE TALKING ABOUT TARTANS?! The scotts have such a beautiful language. Did you know that Braveheart was actually based on a true story?” I just left the room.

For 4 years I kept trying to guide any convo back to Osama’s raid. Sometimes my grandma would speak up and say, “Don’t bring up those terrorists! We should not be even giving them our thoughts, they don’t deserve it. Let’s talk about nice things like Rudolph or Santa! It’s Christmas for Pete’s sake!” Sometimes one of the loud mouths would hear half a word and get triggered on something unrelated.

I originally got a culinary degree but went back to get an accounting degree after not liking culinary as a career. It was 2017, 6 years after Osama’s raid. We had a small graduation party with relatives and my mom wanted me to stand up and thank everyone for coming and supporting me. My mom whistled and everyone shut up. I stood up and said

“Thank you for the love and support everyone. I’ve been wanting to say this for a long time. 6 years ago uncle x, y, and grandpa X were debating about what happened to Osama’s body. Osama Bin Laden was buried in the sea and the Taliban were furious about it. Thank you.”

It was quiet for a second and then one of my uncles started a political debate about how only a democratic president could have taken out Osama and then my grandpa got heated and a loud debate occurred. It took 6 years but I finally got to say the interesting thing I had initially been unable to.