Muriel’s Night Outside

It was Labor Day in Sausalito and a young African-American woman named Muriel Bentley decided to do something special; she decided to host a barbecue cookout in her backyard that she happened to share with her Sephardic Jewish-American wife named Velma DeMayo-Bentley, their pet Corgi named Sandy and their kids named Avery, Veronica and Montclair, respectively. However, Muriel had adopted Montclair after his mom had to give him up while Avery and Veronica were Velma’s kids from her first marriage to a Russian-Jewish man named Grigori Rublikovsky and they only got divorced when Velma caught Grigori in bed with another woman...and yet that was a different story.

Anyway, the family was participating in the cookout; Muriel herself was in charge of the grilling while Velma had to make French fries with the Air-Frying machine; the kids, on the other hand, worked together to prepare the ingredients that were needed for the cookout.

“Alright, everyone, do you have anything ready for the cookout?” Muriel called out.

“No problem, Mom!” Montclair blurted out.

“Good,” Muriel said. “What we’ll need is to grill those bad boys and I could use a hand.”

Afterwards, everyone worked together to grill the likes of cheeseburgers, hot dogs and corn-on-the-cob, respectively; when everything was said and done, all the food was brought to the patio table and when everyone was about to dig in, all of the lights in the house suddenly went out, shocking the whole family instantly.

“Oh no!” Veronica cried out. “The power went out!”

“What do we do?” Avery winced.

“Don’t panic!” Muriel declared. “We still have our flashlights, flameless candles and an UV lantern that we can use.”

“I’ll get them,” Velma said. “I’ll be right back.”

With that, Velma turned on the Flashlight app on her iPhone 8 and went into the house to get some flashlights in addition of candles, two camping tents, a Zippo lighter and an UV lantern, respectively.

“Here’s an idea,” Velma suggested as she came back with the things needed in tow. “Why not we try camping after dinner?”

“That’s a good idea!” Muriel agreed, and as soon as the lantern, along with the flameless candles were turned on, everyone started eating. After dinner, everyone did some camping activities, like arts and crafts, playing flashlight tag, backyard-friendly treasure hunting and water balloon fights. For arts and crafts, everyone was doing the macaroni art. Muriel’s art included the “Black Lives Matter” theme; Velma’s art included the Sephardic Jewish theme; Avery’s art had the “Strong for Sausalito” theme; Veronica’s art had the “Standing Strong Against COVID-19” theme; finally, Montclair’s art included the anti-Donald Trump meme, where he did a crude drawing of Donald Trump with “Trump Sucks” written underneath said drawing.

Afterwards, everyone played flashlight tag and just minutes later, Veronica emerged victorious.

“Good game, kid,” Muriel grinned as she patted Veronica on the shoulder.

Afterwards, they went on the treasure-hunting thing and when they reached a certain spot, they dug up the treasure, which was, in fact, a jewelry box filled with costume jewelry; afterwards, they ended up throwing water balloons at each other; only this time, Montclair was the one who emerged victorious and everyone congratulated him. Later, it was time for s’mores, so Muriel and Velma ended up making them for everybody except Sandy, since chocolate was bad for dogs. Then when the family was enjoying the s’mores and sitting around the fire pit, Muriel decided to tell a story.

“So since Donald Trump became a president,” Muriel began, “everything went to shit. More hate crimes are on the rise everyday. My fellow BIPOC siblings are getting killed everyday and the Jews are being harassed by Nazis. Also, he’s always locking up kids of undocumented immigrants in cages with little to no sign of letting them out. Oh, and the rich keep getting richer while everyone else has to starve. Then when COVID-19 hit our country, he decided to just sit back on his fat ass and do nothing about it and because of him, so many people got infected and died. Also, some of the Democrats aren’t really doing enough about it and I’m fed up with it now, so that’s why I decided that I want to something. One of these days, I want to run for Congress! And guess who inspired me to want to run for Congress and change the world? Ilhan Omar inspired me to do that and so did Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Ayanna Pressley, Rashida Tlaib, Pramila Jayapal, Alex Morse, Jamaal Bowman, Mondaire Jones, Marie Newman, Ed Markey, Cori Bush, Elizabeth Warren, Katie Porter and Bernie Sanders combined! They’ve been my role models since November 2018 and they’re still my role models. I want to change the world! I want to help people when they need it most! And I want to make rich people pay their fair share of taxes! And I also want to ensure that everyone can get tested for COVID-19! I also want to help speed up the testing! But most of all, I want to run for Congress and change the world for the better! And no amount of corporate money can do anything about it!”

“That’s a great idea!” Velma agreed. “Why not file for Congress when the time comes?”

“Actually, my dear,” Muriel said, “I’d like that!”

“Yay, Mom’s going to run for Congress!” all the kids cheered in unison.

Shortly after their s’mores and campfire story sessions, the family sat on a big blanket to watch the stars (and in the case of the kids, create different constellations) until it was time for bed, since the kids had to go to school á la Zoom the next day, so everyone rolled out their respective sleeping bags inside their tents. Muriel and Velma would sleep in their on tent while the kids would sleep in theirs. The family then exchanged “good nights” with each other prior to heading to their respective tents and hitting the sack. Even though the kids weren’t happy about going to school, they were at least glad that they got to do the camping and Muriel and Velma made sure that it was the night to remember.