Thanksgiving is coming and that can mean only one thing . . . time to pile into the family vehicle with my grubby little offspring for 9 hours. I've spent the last week ironing and carefully packing clothes so that we can look at least halfway presentable when we roll into my sister's yard in Baltimore. But who am I kidding? After 9 hours in the car, we always look like a desperate pack of crazed rats who have just discovered a way to escape from their filthy cage and are foraging for some food.
Of course, I've learned by now that it would be a mistake to stay at my sister's house. No matter how hard we try, when we descend on my sister's tidy townhouse, we end up leaving a path of destruction in our wake. The memories from previous Thanksgivings have been permanently seared into my grey matter. No, I've learned from experience that it is best to stay at a hotel where no one knows us and no one will ever see us again.
When the Smokin' Pirate was a toddler, we made the unwise decision to attempt to stay with my sister in her paper-thin walled apartment. My newly married sister was thrilled to be able to host us in her freshly decorated two bedroom home. Unfortunately, the psychopath who lived directly under her was less than thrilled. He proceeded to pound on the ceiling and make threatening noises whenever we even crept across the floor. Needless to say, the Smokin' Pirate was incapable of tiptoeing across a floor at that point. That boy knew only one speed . . . ramming speed. His walk was more like a full-on run that inevitably resulted in him smashing into tables, chairs, or anything else that got in his way. After watching my sister nervously recount just how psychotic her neighbor was, we chose to book a hotel room for the remainder of our stay.
The problem is, even when we stay in a hotel, we still have to survive Thanksgiving dinner itself. When we visit my sister, we usually celebrate Thanksgiving with my brother-in-law's family. His family is a well-mannered, highly educated group of professionals whose children are all college age or older. They are a well dressed bunch who like to sit quietly around the dinner table and discuss current events in civilized tones. In the past, when we've come barging into the dining room with our two boisterous children, the atmosphere has become decidedly more raucous. In between stuffing gigantic amounts of mashed potatoes and rolls into their months, my children end up flinging food on the floor, emitting at least one grossly inappropriate bodily noise, and start making observations that would be better left unsaid. (One of my daughter's favorite things to say is: "Wow, you look a lot older than the last time we saw you. I think you're balder, too.") And it is a near certainty that my children will attempt to escape from the dinner table within 10 minutes of sitting down. One year, when the Smokin' Pirate was just an infant, we actually had to flee the house and do laps around the tranquil subdivision with our screaming, inconsolable child.
I'm not setting any lofty goals this Thanksgiving. While I've already pleaded with my children to please, please, please find a way to behave decently at Thanksgiving dinner, I have almost no hope that they will find a way to comply with my request. My plan is to enjoy the hotel (and probably never return), and pray that my brother-in-law finds a way to forgive me.
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