The Tangled Woods (Dark Corners Collection, #5)

by Emily Raboteau

Once she’d been radical; her Angela Davis/street/door knocker–earring vibe had appealed to his light-skinned insecurities so that having her at his side had authenticated his questionable blackness. That initial attraction felt flimsy to him now that they were middle-aged, altered by parenthood and property taxes. He felt hoodwinked, entrapped in a predictably bourgeois life, heading on a holiday that lacked imagination, wonder, and risk.

.... or does it?

Worse, he knew he wouldn’t bear up to the scrutiny of his younger self, who’d dreamed of becoming a film auteur and would righteously accuse him of not only settling but also submitting to a fairly run-of-the-mill midlife crisis.

Yep pretty much!

Kids raced around with abandon, snacking on junk and brandishing battery-operated magic wands. They were ruling the joint like tyrannical little gods. Beleaguered parents in slovenly leisure wear shouted after them and at each other and at the staff behind the desk.

I think I’ve been to this place. Oh yeah, it’s my worst nightmares!

Shirley Chisholm

Did you have to google this? Yeah, me too.

The halls were filled with men on the verge of hitting their children. The mothers were nags. The children were feral. They provoked their siblings. They scrambled away from their parents. They demanded sugar. They taunted, littered, and talked back. The bickering clans overlapped, cursed souls clawing like crabs in a barrel.

And this is why I never, ever - never ever ever! - go to Costco!