This year the scandal was this. My mother insisted that I invite my BOSS, of all people on the face of this planet, to dinner at our HOUSE. Is she absolutely nuts, I asked her, only to deeply offend her, I later found out.

I explained to her that there was no possible way that my boss would EVER enjoy coming to our house for any purpose, especially not Thanksgiving what with the way things are done around here. I mean I would never invite anyone whose opinion of me I valued to eat dinner in this house unless we had known each other for at least several years.

This was taken as me being snobbish but come on....

Who wants to sit through hours on end of bickering and complaining. I don't! So why would I put anyone else through the same oppressive torture?

This year Fredsy and I seemed to ban together against the farce of a traditional Thanksgiving celebration my mother strains to create each and every year knowing full well that she will fail to do anything but get everyone pissed off.

We did not say grace, there was a huge issue over whether the turkey had already gone bad while sitting in the refridgerator waiting to be cooked and there was even talk of eating in front of the television which I fought hard to veto in the face of coming away from Thanksgiving feeling pathetically american, middle-class, suburban and pathetic. (did I say that twice? good then...I meant too.)

Despite this all a memory was made this Thanksgiving that I will cherish into old age I'm sure. It is a long story....but here goes.

We have finally diagnosed my dad's paraniod fantasies for what they really are...mild schizophrenia. He is honestly under the impression that all of the stop lights on the West Coast are timed against his schedule. (On the East Coast though the lights work for him, he claims.) He really believes that everytime he comes upon a stoplight he will get there at the exact moment that it turns red so that he will have to wait through the entire cycle of signals to go by before his turn comes up, that is if his turn isn't skipped altogether. Of course this wouldn't be a malfunction but something done intentionally to piss him off.

After listening to him lament how fate was against him in this way he went on to explain how he knows when he wakes up in the morning whether or not fate will work against him that day. He told a story of a morning in his teens when he woke up feeling that fate was on his side and he opened his mouth to sing and found that he could sing every note of every octave and it lasted all day long. It was the greatest feeling of his life he said but when he woke up the next day the feeling was gone and so was his singing voice. "Figures...," he says, "...the story of my life. I'm not cut out for show biz anyway."

I couldn't stop laughing. It was the best story I had ever heard from him and an original one at that as he tends to be kind of a repeater along with his wife, my mother.

In conclusion I would like to share my favorite quote for the evening, "NO PATTY, WE AREN'T SAVING THE POTATOES BECAUSE TOMORROW THEY WILL TASTE LIKE CRAP."

God bless us one and all.

28 November 2002 - 10:51 PM

previous * next