DEADLY WEAPONS & THANKSGIVING

        With Thanksgiving a mere two weeks away, I cannot help but cast my mind back to last year’s festivities, when I flew back east to Connecticut for that yearly get-together with…(fade in ominous chord)…the fam.

Hoo boy.

For those of you with odd families—and by ‘odd’ I mean families that actually get along whenever they’re together—you will find this column funny (or, at least, I hope you will).  For those of you out there with normal families, you will probably be nodding your head knowingly as you read, and will feel better at the end because you will realize that you are not alone in sharing blood with those lunatics, liars, and convicts-in-training that we gather under the woefully inadequate, laughably misleading umbrella called, ‘Family.’  You may call them ‘brother,’ ‘sister,’ and ‘Aunt Maude.’  Later in the day, the police will call them, ‘drunk and disorderly,’ ‘assailant with a deadly weapon,’ and ‘Black Friday klepto-woman.’

People in my family don’t being covered dishes with them.

The bring bail money.

Here’s how last year went:

Once at the house and divested of mukluks and a down-filled coat that made me look like the Sta-Puft Marshmallow Man, I hand my mother the pumpkin pie she’d asked me to make (there was a file baked inside—couldn’t afford bail money that year).  This pie is made of freshly-processed pumpkin, not that tinned crap. This results in a lighter color and the flavor is remarkable.

So my mother feels compelled to remark.

“Looks sort of anemic, doesn’t it?”

“Top it with a unit of O Negative, then.  Where is everybody?”  The driveway was a sea of cars.

“You’re the first.”

“Opening a used car lot?”

“Overflow from the neighbors’ big do.”

“So . . . what?  The family’s going to park on the street, like I did?”  The house is on a hill with a 50-foot driveway.

“Looks that way.  We just wanted to help out. You might try loving your fellow man a little more, Carson.  Your snarky attitude is unbecoming.”

All this from a woman whose dirty look can open clams at twenty paces.

But okay, I’ll go along.  She’s getting older.  She’s forgotten that where she spits, grass never grows.

“What can I do to help?” I’m hoping quite a lot.  My mother is not the best of cooks.

“Nothing really.  It’s all done. We can go sit and talk until everyone else gets here.”

“Well, before we do that, how about if I go and scatter some salt and sand on the driveway—it’s pretty slick out there.”

“In a minute.  I have something I want to discuss with you.”

Oh, God.

When we are seated, Mom drops the big one.  “I think your father is having an affair.”

Holding in explosive laughter, which, having nowhere to go, travels downward, instantly inflating my ankles, I said, “Mom, Dad is 83 years old.”

“Yes, that’s right.”

“He’s legally blind.”

“Right.”

“He only has one leg.”

“Yes.”

“And a colostomy bag.”

“What’s your point?”

“I can’t believe you just asked me that.”

So, after Mom dries her eyes, I posed the big question.

“How do you know, anyway?”

“He’s started wearing thong underwear.”

Most people, mainly women, wear thongs to avoid underwear lines showing through their pants.  I’d really like to know who my father thinks is looking at his ass.  “That’s it?  Thong underwear?”

“And he’s using that Axe cologne.”

“Ah, I take it he’s losing his sense of smell, as well, then?”

“This is not the time for jokes, Carson.  Oh, and he’s letting his hair grow longer.”

My father has had a crew cut for as long as I’ve known him.  “Perhaps he’s finally decided to leave the 1950s behind?”

“I don’t think so.

“Okay, so who with?  Any idea?”

“Oh, I know exactly who with.”

Evidently, according to my mother, Pop has become enamored of the local Postmistress . . . who is 92, uses a walker, and is nearly deaf.  Getting the mail is never a peaceful pursuit if there is anyone requiring front desk service.  At Christmastime it's bedlam in there.

“So what are you going to do about it?  Have you talked to him?”

“No.”

“Why not?  Talking to me isn’t going to get it resolved.”

“I don’t want to discuss it anymore.”

“You don’t have to.  I’m going to go talk to him.”

“No.  It has nothing to do with you.  Leave it alone.  Let’s just have a pleasant Thanksgiving, all right?”

Yes, kindly readers, this is Thanksgiving in my house.

The aged relatives begin arriving, with only minor gashes and contusions from slipping on the ice in the driveway on the way up from the street.

Once everyone is comfortable, Mom hustles us into the dining room to eat “before everything dries out.”

Food is passed, plates are loaded, wine glasses filled and it begins.

My Uncle Dan starts things off.  “So, how’s life with the Buckinghams?”

My mother bursts into tears and dashes from the room.

“About the same, I see,” he mutters.

By the time my mother composes herself enough to return, Aunt Shirley is already on her fifth glass of wine and her seventh filthy joke.  This doesn’t play well to Aunt Mary, who is a nun.  My brother has decided to use his considerable talents as a career waiter in a diner to instruct the group on French serving and is launching food all over the room.  Dad is still looking for his fork.  My cousin Lois hasn’t taken her face out of her pocket mirror since she arrived, and has answered at least six calls on her Bluetooth, since she knew we’d all want to hear her side of each conversation.  Aunt Anne has removed her wig and is beating my cousin Donald with it—I have no idea why.

The only reason that there is no gunplay this year is that, when Mom wasn’t looking, I sneaked Valium into the stuffing . . . a lot of Prozac.  By the time the football game started, the family members who weren’t unconscious were actually getting along, and even I was a little less snarky.

So, odd family or normal, I wish those who celebrate it a Happy Thanksgiving, free of bloodshed and weapons charges.