Thanksgiving Freakout. (original) (raw)

One of the best parts of holidays is developing family traditions. Maybe it�s cutting your own tree from the neighbor�s yard, publicly stating what you�re thankful for in haiku form, or having the kids try on grandma�s dentures, it�s nice to have a family bonding activity to look forward to every year. Here at Casa de Gosselink, our holiday tradition has become known as the �Thanksgiving Freak-out.�

Life used to be so simple, just like the song. Every year when Thanksgiving would roll around, we would load up the car and �Over the river and through the wood to grandmother�s house� we would go. I�m crossing rivers, going through woods like crazy; even jingling things just to be on the safe side. The point being, I was meeting my holiday lyric proscribed responsibilities.

The best part was, I�d roll in with a pie or something, hug the family, and then call dibs on the biggest recliner for the turkey, football induced coma. At that point, all my responsibilities had been met and it was time to express my thanks with gluttony and sloth. Hooray gluttony and sloth!

But then a funny thing happened on the way to grandma�s house � I got all old, married, and begrudgingly responsible. For the first 7, 8 years of marriage and child rearing, we still went to grandma�s house, which worked perfectly for me. But then, out of nowhere, the wife gets all �It�s time we live up to our familial obligations. We need to entertain here. "

Okay. I�m thinking she means cupcakes after a dance recital or something. But no, for Thanksgiving she wants to feed the entire majestic herd of Gosselinks rumbling across the fruited plains. I wish had been drinking a soda at the time, because if there was ever a time for a spit-take, this was it.

After going to the fridge, getting a diet Dr. Pepper, walking back to the living room, and making her say it again so I could spit my drink out, Jerry Lewis style (If you�re not in the moment, a spit-take really loses its essence), I cleaned up the mess and got to rationalizing about Thanksgiving.

You know, it�s really just another meal, just with some fairly easy to cook traditions. A little turkey, some mashed potatoes, crack open some cranberries and see if anyone will actually eat them, what�s the big deal, I figure. Sometimes being na�ve is endearing, but most of the time it just gets you in trouble, like here.

We start the freak-out the weekend before Thanksgiving. First of all, the wife and I have terrible communication problems. This stems from the fact I speak English, whereas she speaks Crazy Talk. Words come out of her mouths, words I even think I recognize, but what she is saying and what I am hearing are totally different things.

For instance, she�ll say we have to clean the house. Okay, I know what that means. Make the kids pick up their junk, run the vacuum over a few rooms, and promise to neither spit clean the glasses nor do spit-takes, whether in the moment or not.

No, that�s not what she means at all. Apparently, the word �clean� has varying degrees of meaning, not from suffixes, but from the inflection you put on it, and they build in intensity the further you conjugate them. Come to find out, Crazy Talk is a Romance language like Spanish and French, for it adds meaning and tense through conjugation.

There is �regular clean,� then �friends are visiting clean,� then �showing house to perspective buyers clean,� but what you do at Thanksgiving is make it �in-law clean.�

�In-law clean� means sucking the joy, life, and any hint of humanity out of the house. I�ll be proudly standing in my freshly swept and Swiffered kitchen when she�ll walk in with the industrial mop and welding helmet. This leads to the first freak out conversation of the season.

�I don�t want you to leave this kitchen until the floor is so clean you can eat off it.� �So if I drop some mash potatoes during the meal, I can just scoop them up and plop them in mouth?� �No, don�t be ridiculous.� �What�s the point of a floor you can eat off if you can�t eat off it?� �Okay, funny boy, how about you make it so clean surgery could be performed on it.� �Ooooh, brother Pete the doctor is coming � you think he�ll do surgery? That would be cool! Maybe he could give me some pect implants. That way I�ll be barrel chested instead of just chubby.�

Then she�ll freak out some more, start the Crazy Talk, and everyone is in a bad mood. This bad mood builds until Thursday.

After five days of freak out, it�s finally Thanksgiving Day and about an hour before the guests arrive. The wife, having been up since 4 a.m., has 87 things going at once in the kitchen and is FREAKING OUT, the kids can�t find their shoes, ribbons or something and are FREAKING OUT, and I decide this would be the perfect time to do something irrelevant, like shine all 4 pairs of my dress shoes. This increases the intensity of the freak out to the breaking point.

But, just when I think we�re all going to snap and make the local newscast in a bad way, a kid will shout, �Poppa John and Nana are here!� and miraculously, we will all assemble at the front door, in matching outfits even, and be the very picture of domestic bliss and tranquility.

By sundown, the turkey will have been juicy, the conversation fun, I�ll have refrained from eating off the floor and spit-taking, and everyone will go home happy. Most importantly, the family and I get to bed early. We have to rest up for our traditional Christmas freak-out.