BBQ (Part 3)

View Part 1 of BBQ.
View Part 2 of BBQ.

Many cheers arose from the backyard, which Travis assumed meant many people were back in their original bodies. Of course, Travis knew he wasn’t so lucky, Mirah wasn’t either.

As he was still rubbing his head due to the pain of the swap, Alvin’s overweight body stumbled over. Somehow Travis just knew.

“I’m sorry, Mirah,” He said.

He could tell she was holding back the tears, “Who’s in there?”

“Travis.”

She seemed to cheer up a little. “Well, it’s better than Dennis! That was the worst! Do us both a favor and get yourself tested. It was Dennis, after all.”

He hadn’t considered all the thigns Dennis had probably done in Mirah’s body, but she was probably right. Dennis was just that type of person. And as he thought about all of this, he noticed his grandfather had approached.

“Give it back!” The elderly man said.

Travis somehow knew that this must have been Dennis. It seemed perfectly fitting, and the ultimate opportunity for revenge. He simply looked up and smiled before saying, “I don’t know what you’re talking about, GRANDPA!”

BBQ (Part 2)

View Part 1 of BBQ.

It was like a self-fulfilling prophecy, as soon as Dennis said it, there was a thunderous sound in the air and everyone was knocked to their feet. It was just like last year, and once again everyone’s bodies were mixed up.

Travis knew for sure he wasn’t back in his own body. But at least he wasn’t his own mother anymore! He probably could’ve dealt with being a woman, but being old with everything sagging and aching? All that stuff was the worst. His new body did feel familiar, but it didn’t hurt; it was younger, perkier. Things looked up, at least a little bit.

As it turned out, Travis now found himself in his sister Mirah’s body, the one his brother Dennis had just been in moments ago. People always said she looked a lot like their mom, and Travis was amazed by how much they felt the same from the inside perspective. Still, being 21 years old was certainly an improvment over being 50!

BBQ (Part 1)

Last year’s annual family BBQ had been quite an event. No one knew exactly how or why everyone swapped bodies, but they were all hoping that somehow this year it would happen again in order to return to their own bodies. In the time that had passed, they had all agreed to assume the lives of the bodies they were currently in -- as they doubted anyone would believe a story about body swapping anyway.

Travis had found himself in the body of his own mother, a woman in her 50s who had given birth to five kids (including himself), all of whom were now grown up and at college or living out of the house. Most of his siblings swapped with each other; he considered them pretty lucky not to have to deal with a significant age difference. He felt bad for his mom though, who ended up in his grandfather’s body.

As he flipped the hot dogs on the grill, he couldn’t help but think about his body and all he had missed out on in the last year. But when he looked around, he noticed his body wasn’t there yet.

“Where Alvin?” He asked. Alvin was his nerdy, overweight cousin that had ended up in his body. Travis had been an athletic guy in his 20s before the swap; it would be just like Alvin to ditch and not want to risk swapping back.

“Mom!” His brother Dennis said from inside of his sister Mirah’s body while looking up from her phone, “Alvin is right over there.” She pointed to Alvin’s body, sitting in the corner.

“Oh, shove it, Dennis. You know who I mean,” Travis snapped back, “If he’s not here and we all somehow swap back...”

“That’s so not happening, MOM. Come on! That was like a once in a lifetime thing! There’s no way! You just have to learn to live with it...”

Punish Them Severely

Wesley wasn’t sure how or why his entire family had swapped bodies over the holidays. They had all hoped they’d return to normal before the vacation was over. They didn’t.

He had swapped bodies with his Aunt Junie. He always thought of her as the “cool aunt” since she was about a decade younger than his mom, and she had kids a decade younger than he was. Oh, and speaking of that, it was his own mom and dad that ended up in the body of Aunt Junie’s kids. They weren’t exactly happy about ending up in the bodies of an 8 year old and a 10 year old, and they ended up getting in trouble at school simply because they were acting like adults and not children.

Wesley was called in for a meeting with the teachers and the principal, and it felt like such a power trip. Of course, when he arrived he was acting like a 20 year old dude instead of a woman in her 30s as well, which was as much of a surprise to the school officials as the behavior of the children was. But, still, Wesley wasn’t going to pass up an opportunity to talk up the idea of “punishing them severely.”

Family Swap

“So we all woke up in each other’s bodies this morning,” Ming tried to reason with her two adult children, “Perhaps when we go to bed tonight, we’ll swap again and wake back up in our own bodies.”

“Or it’ll get worse when Dad gets home tonight, and he’s thrown into the mix of it all,” Grace said from Ming’s body before thinking about it, “Ew, I’m not sharing a bed with Dad tonight!”

“We’ll find some excuse to have you sleep with me in Grace’s room,” Peter said from Grace’s body, “Are you sure you don’t have some ancient Chinese secret here to solve this, Mom? I feel like you always throw out some herbs or something whenever even a minor thing goes on.”

“No! This is well beyond my knowledge,” Ming replied.

“Oh, and, Mom, when Dad does get home, you’re going to have to be quiet. If he hears my voice with your accent; he’s going to know something is weird. And, Grace, do you think you can fake Mom’s accent?”

“I fake accent good!” Grace said imitating her Mom.

“I don’t sound like that! I’m not a caricature!” Ming protested.

“It’s still going to have to be good enough. You can’t both be mute when Dad comes home...” Peter reasoned.