My Only Bitchy Cousin Is A Yankee-type Guy- The... Guide

“And you’re my only bitchy cousin.”

“I know,” I said, sitting down next to him. “You’re a terrible liar.”

The summer we turned twelve was the summer he officially became my “bitchy cousin.” The whole extended family went to a lake house. My uncle had a boat. There were tubes to be pulled, fish to be caught, and a rope swing that had probably killed at least two people in the 80s. It was perfect. My Only Bitchy Cousin Is a Yankee-Type Guy- The...

I stood up. “Bradley,” I said, sweet as pie, “I have a question.”

He still corrects my grammar. I still threaten to push him off the dock. But now when he says “It’s ‘fewer’ not ‘less,’” I say, “Bless your heart, Bradley.” And for some reason, that’s become the nicest thing either of us knows how to say. “And you’re my only bitchy cousin

His name is Bradley, but I’ve called him “Bratley” in my head since we were nine. He’s my only cousin on my mother’s side—my only cousin, period—and he is a Yankee-Type Guy. Not just a guy from the North, mind you. He’s the stereotype . The one who thinks sweet tea is an abomination, that “bless your heart” is a declaration of war, and that any temperature above 72 degrees is a personal insult from God.

“It’s ‘fewer rolls,’ not ‘less rolls,’ Aunt Patty. Rolls are discrete units.” There were tubes to be pulled, fish to

We grew up in the sticky, kudzu-choked humidity of central Georgia. He grew up in a gray, tastefully expensive suburb of Boston. And every summer, his parents would ship him down to my grandmother’s farm for two weeks of “family connection.” Those two weeks were my annual descent into hell.