Thanksgiving Fare--or Not Fair

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The following humor column appears in the November 2006 issue of "Suburban Scene" magazine (a local magazine distributed in Anne Arundel County, Maryland).

Have an enjoyable Thanksgiving holiday--and don't forget to help Mom with clean-up.

Thanksgiving Fare--or Not Fair
by Angie Brennan

Okay, whose idea was it to invent a holiday where we spend half the day cooking a meal no one really wants and the other half cleaning it up? And of course, when I say “we” I mean “Mom.” And how is it that Dad gets out of dish clean-up duty year after year? Maybe it started long ago, at the very first Thanksgiving…

The meal was over, Squanto had gone home, and Goodman Smythe was helping his wife in the kitchen. As he scrubbed the heirloom china turkey platter--his wife’s only precious tie with the world they had left behind--he dreamt of a day when the colony would have more than enough food for the winter, sturdy shelters for all, and its own professional football team. Suddenly the platter slipped from his hands, hit the floor, and shattered.

Goody Smythe whirled around and glared at her husband with a mixture of anger and exasperation. “Go!” quoth she in a fearful voice, “Prithee, leave my kitchen--lest ye bring about more harm than help!” Goodman Smythe hurried into the living room, smiling furtively, and settled onto the couch where he spent the rest of the afternoon in front of the television--which wasn’t all that interesting since electricity hadn’t been invented yet. Still, it beat doing dishes.

But enough history--let’s talk about cranberries. What, exactly, is the point? Year after year that unsightly gelatinous mass of cranberry sauce appears at the table. It’s like someone created a festive jiggling centerpiece made of internal organs. Maybe it’s that we find something comforting about those familiar Thanksgiving foods. A little too familiar, perhaps, since it’s probably the same bowl of cranberry sauce nobody ate last year.

Then we have the green beans. It’s a fine concept--serving a healthful holiday vegetable. But don’t pretend you’re engaging in any nutritional heroics with green beans, since they’re edible only when swimming in lard (the green beans, not the eater). I think everyone would be happier if we just dropped the charade and served up a casserole of cream of mushroom soup mixed with cheddar cheese topped with sour cream and crushed corn flakes--and left the green beans out of it.

Of course, we can always look forward to pumpkin pie at the end of the meal. But let’s face it, pumpkin pie isn’t exactly the temptress of the dessert world. It’s not like you see restaurants offering “Triple-Pumpkin Decadence” or “Death by Pumpkin.”

At least the turkey is usually pretty good. Remember how delicious those pre-meal “stolen” pieces of turkey tasted when you were a child? You aren’t still fooling yourself about how sneaky you were, are you? Recall that after you got bored with fighting with your sister and dismantling the decorative cornucopia on the dining room table, you spent the next three hours complaining about how starving you were. If your mother hadn’t allowed you to sneak that turkey and get a little protein into your system, she would have been after you with the carving knife instead of the turkey.

But whatever our Thanksgiving fare might be, once the meal is over we can look around at the smiling, contented faces of family and loved ones gathered around the table and say, with one voice, “Sorry I can’t help with dishes, Mom--I’ll be in the bathroom.” Except for Dad, who’s already staked out his place on the couch.