Ghost of Thanksgivings Past:
My holiday was pretty uneventful this year, so I thought I’d regale you with tales from last Thanksgiving weekend. Enjoy.
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A brief rundown of my weekend of holiday joy. You can either skim this, or read it voraciously, savoring every word. (I highly suggest the latter if you are at all considering wooing me.)
Wednesday evening, 6-11pm: In the car with my entire immediate family. Somehow, whenever placed in the backseat, my brother and I revert to our most charming ages, and our goal is to make our mother sigh and rest her head in her hands the whole way there. We succeeded, mostly by recounting tales of holidays past with the No Shirt cousins. This is fun, because we got to mimic them, and I yell, “I HATE YOU! I’M ONNA KIIIIIIIILL YOU, MOTHERFUCKER!” And then my brother yells, “I’M ONNA THROW THIS ATCHOOOO, MOTHERFUCKER! I’M ONNA BREAK YOUR FACE!” And I say, “GO AHEAD! FUCKIN THROW IT, YOU FAGGOT!” And then my mother cries. Quite possibly the best Thanksgiving memory ever. We don’t get to see that side of the family often, mostly due to parole violations, and so we treasure our times with them. The upscale side just isn’t quite as entertaining.
Thursday: Food. A little too much wine, which is necessary when dealing with some family members and their stories about guys they are dating named Mario and Travis.
Friday morning: The joyous arrival of my cousin Becca, who is quite possibly my favorite person in the world. She is 14, and has whole-heartedly embraced her 14 year old-ness. She just unabashedly loves N*SYNC and sparkly nail polish and all things WB. She makes me wish I could be that age again and try to be happy about it, instead of hiding out in my room, listening to the Cure and journaling through some rage. Unfortuantely, Becca’s arrival was followed all too closely by the horrid reality of being dragged to not just one, but multiple Old Navys. They smelled like sweat and desperation inside. Still didn’t stop me from buying a pair of jeans, though.
Friday night: It was B.Y.O.S. (Bring Your Own Smut) night in Tyler, Texas. And Becca followed through. She smuggled in some choice dirty Judy Blume books she had checked out on the sly, unbeknownst to her mother, like the oft-overlooked “Forever” and “Wifey,” and then showed me all the dirty parts. I cannot tell you how much I love Becca. She is such a library rebel. So much like a young Sarah. I wiped away a tear and read me some smut. (Also, I have some big gossip for you! Becca knows people named Georgiann and Raksimy, and according to Becca, they DID IT. Good God. Eighth graders are getting more action than me.)
Saturday: Even more Old Navys. They are trying to break me. I tried to counteract the Old Navyness by defecting to buy wholly unnecessary lacy underthings and New Year’s Eve shoes.
Saturday night: The only way to interact with my two girl cousins, since I evidently don’t speak the language of Old Navy and the WB: seeing Charlie’s Angels. But then we met up with my cousin Andrew and my brother, and went bowling. I bowled my first strike ever. Then we took Becca home and went to a party with Andrew, who is 19 and my favorite. I learned a fun new thing to do at this party. He introduced me to this guy, and this is how the conversation went:
Andrew: This is Lance. Lance, this is Sarah.
Lance (very drunk, shaking my hand): Hi, I’m Eddie.
Sarah (eyebrows high): Uh, yes.
Eddie (conspiratorially): I don’t smoke crack, but I sell it.
Sarah (leaving): Andrew…
I’ve decided to start doing this to people at parties. Minus the crack part, of course.
Person: This is Sarah.
Me: Hi, I’m Michelle.*
Genius!
We left soon after, because it was a Freebird type of party. And I knew Becca had smut at home.
Sunday: Driving home. Lots of sleep. Somehow, the motherfucker reenactments aren’t as funny in broad daylight.
* I actually tried this tactic at a bar a few weeks later, and it went badly. An excerpt from an email to my friend: “I used my Michelle line, and it wasn’t as fun as I had hoped it would be. An old man at the bar told me I was delightful. “Michelle, you are delightful.” He had a compass on his vest. I felt bad for lying to him about my name.”