Thanksgiving Turkeys

I always giggle a little when hearing people's horror stories about eating Thanksgiving dinner with their families... My friend Bill calls it "Lock and Load..." Honestly, I love holidays with my family... This year, I was especially grateful... You see, about a week ago, I made a fatal error when calling my sister to wish her a happy birthday... She was upset because my brother in law went to a club - without her.... After talking her out of pouring cornflakes on his side of the bed, I thought I'd mosey on over to the club and "straighten things out..." Um. Why I thought this was an isolated incident is beyond me...

But. Hero that I am, I marched into the club... I told the bouncer I was there on family business and needed to find my brother-in-law... He asked, "Family Business?" I glared at him. He stepped aside. I marvelled at how easy that was. I found my b-i-l, and said, "Dude, I don't know what's going on, but maybe you should go home..."

I then got a good, solid, object lesson at why sisters-in-law should not butt into marital business... I learned much more about my sis' home life than I ever wanted to - and walked away - thinking.... "Wow. That was stupid." In the morning, I found two cell phone messages, both from my brother-in-law... One said "I'm going home. Are you happy?!" The next: "Kelly, if you didn't want to get involved with this, you shouldn't have come over..." click.

To make a long story short, I apologized to my harried brother for handling the situation the way I did... and we made up... In addition, so did my sister and brother-in-law... Which was great because we all had Thanksgiving to attend to... (Lost battle? Won war? Whatever... It worked out...) It was a lovely day - and I am grateful I have such a great family... I know. We have our ups and downs... but for the most part - we really don't mind being together.

I have a hard time hearing about those who have no where to go on the holidays... There are stories - but none so interesting as one that happened the Wednesday before Thanksgiving... this year. I was in my office, where the HVAC repair man was explaining the reason for an expensive repair... I hear my boss in the hall, saying "Great. Well Happy F***ing Thanksgiving to YOU." More low banter I can't hear.... Then my boss says "Whaddaya mean you're not going anywhere for Thanksgiving? Are you psychotic? (no, answered the repair guy) "Then you can come to my house for dinner," offered my boss... More banter... The repair man and my boss go into his office to fill in a work order... As he's leaving the building, I hear my boss say, "You're mediocre... but you're expensive..."

So. Happy F***ing Thanksgiving to all...