Thanksgiving Avenger

I should have followed the man with the dead deer in the bed of his pick-up truck on Thanksgiving morning. I should have seen what became of the body. I was behind him at the stoplight near Fashion Square Mall, but he turned right and I went straight. We were both heading toward the country. Did he shoot the deer in the city and then drive it out to Earlysville to dump it? Had he killed it in the country but then driven it around town for a few hours in order to show it off? I don’t think people should be allowed to transport deer carcasses in their cars like that, especially on holidays. ESPECIALLY near Sbarro’s, Dip-n-Dots, and Chick-Fil-A.

The family doctor came to Thanksgiving. When my grandmothers heard that he had arrived, they propped their feet up on the coffee table so he would see that they were following orders. The doctor’s four-year-old son ran onto the pool cover like it was a trampoline. At the time I was chasing him with a lacrosse ball that had been slimed by a pit bull. The boy sunk down to the water level but didn’t get wet. I held him in my arms like he was my own son who had survived. Then I quickly distracted him from the near-death experience. “My grandmother has a toilet beside her bed. Do you want to see it?” “Yes,” he said.

Percocet the cat disappeared when the Thanksgiving dogs arrived. My sister found her crouched in the upstairs heating vent. My sister shot more clay pigeons than my brother from the mountains. He bought Jager Bombs for all his city cousins but forgot to pay his bar tab.

My Georgia grandmother thought my petite Virginia cousin was a midget. “I love little people,” she said.

Did you know that Budweiser makes a beer flavored like shrimp cocktail sauce? Neither did I.

My brothers’ girlfriends from oldest to youngest: a) baked chocolate pecan pie for my mom; b) baked peanut butter cookies for my mom; c) danced with the Rockettes in the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade.

I think I found the source of my family’s sweet tooth. My mother’s Coca-Cola consumption was not regulated when she was a child. Five bottles a day back in Georgia, then one ultimate bottle after she brushed her teeth and climbed into bed.

I think I found the source of my family’s alcohol consumption. Beer is delicious and it feels good in our bellies. Except when the beer contains clam juice. I will also leave the bourbon & beef stock drinking to Nick Murray.

Did you know that J.C. Penney’s opened at 4 a.m. on Friday? Refrigerator jelly time!

I watched a documentary today about the 1993 child murders in West Memphis, Arkansas. The documentary (Paradise Lost) moved too slowly for me (I wanted to see what happened in the end), so I paused the movie and got on the internet to read about the case. The most recent appeal on behalf of the Memphis 3 defendants was filed just last month. There have been forensic breakthroughs since 1993 that suggest one of the parents actually killed the children as opposed to the three teenagers given life sentences for the crime. After reading about this theory, I had to watch the documentary over again to see if the father looked guilty. He did! I don’t know why I have never been summoned for jury duty. Anyway this has nothing to do with Thanksgiving; it’s just a random Netflix queue decision I made months ago and forgot about.

I’ve also watched a few too many Sex & the City episodes today. What’s up with Samantha? Before today I’d never watched back to back episodes of that show and now I think I hate it. Clothes, edgy vagina jokes, clothes, gay best friends, oral sex, clothes, blah.

Turkey+mashed potatoes+gravy+beer+a certain someone’s lactose intolerance=a long weekend of holiday farts. Good thing I love farts so much. Thank you, big city house guests, for passing your gas in my direction.