11.25.05: I’m the Only Turkey Here ‹ Blog

Look not mournfully into the past. It comes not back again. Wisely improve the present. It is thine. Go forth to meet the shadowy future, without fear.
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

I’m the Only Turkey Here

November 25, 2005

How was my Thanksgiving? Excellent, thank you for asking! My husband and I feasted with my mother (with, not on), then we all three watched an appropriately feel-good movie (Metallica: Some Kind of Monster). Then it was off to Tony’s family for grown-up talk (the in-laws and yours truly) and top-of-the-lungs screaming (Tony and the niece). The Smallest In-Law, despite being brilliant and beautiful and altogether the greatest midget on Earth, has not yet mastered our names; Tony is still Cony, and I have gone from Tony to Rony. Well, we’re a consonant closer, at least. Now I am watching the snow fall outside (first big snow of the season, and it’s a doozie) and savoring yesterday’s feast via the occasional belch. (Excuse me.)

Ignoring the strange smells wafting through the air, we will now move on to a question of ethics: if there is a car just outside my building that keeps honking its horn in a very oops-someone-cut-the-wrong-wire kind of way, and if there are two guys out there poking around the driver’s seat and under the hood, should I assume the two guys are car thieves and therefore go beat them senseless, or should I just assume they’re the owners, trying to get the damn thing to shut up? I feel like Nietzsche watching that horse getting flogged, except that this horse has a really loud horn and two idiots who can’t make it shut up.

Leaving the horns and the idiots outside, we move on to another topic: The Holiday Season. (Having worked retail, I can’t help but capitalize that phrase. It’s like the god of retail.) Being unable to put off my holiday duties any longer, I am girding my metaphorical loins and steeling myself for battle. I’m making my lists, checking them twice, hiring the naughty to beat up the nice… wait, I’m getting my Christmas list mixed up with my hit list again.

Actually, Christmas shopping is turning out rather well this year—probably because I’ve given up store-shopping completely and have instead taken the online route. This means I can spend an entire day in bed with a heap of junk food and still be considered a thoughtful and accomplished person. On the other hand, my giftees will not be able to escape the thought that I was probably naked and covered in Cheeto dust when I ordered their gift—and when I signed for it, too. I’ve got ideas for everybody’s gifts except for the Smallest In-Law, who is unfortunately past the age when I could give her a blank index card and tell her it was a check for her college fund. (Hey, if she didn’t figure it out sooner or later, she wouldn’t need a college fund anyway.)