Women have been tricked into thinking that Thanksgiving is some kind of holiday.
From the first turkey we cook as wife and mother, we’re sentenced to annual servitude on the last Thursday in November in exchange for sweet words from hungry family members.
The ‘kiss-up’ treatment starts early that morning. You’ve been up since dawn, just enjoying the holiday. Chopping celery. Crying over onions. Rinsing blood puddles from fowl body cavities.
The peace and quiet you’re trying to enjoy as the single perk of your efforts is shattered around mid-morning.
Loved ones stumble into the kitchen, yawning and furry-mouthed, and paste on a lazy holiday smile.
“Hi, Mom/Hon. Boy, it sure smells good in here!” The sleepyheads pad to the frig and lean into its chilly maw, looking for breakfast. You want to clunk them in the head with a baster.
How can they think of eating when a feast is just a few hours away? Little tummies growl; you relent and get bowls for cereal.
Hands carry bowls to the living room and spoons clank in cadence to Macy’s Parade music on TV. Snoopy floats across the screen like the Ghost of Thanksgivings Past, and your family stares in rerun dullness.
You can’t see Snoopy from the kitchen, where you’re peeling enough potatoes to feed Beetle Bailey’s entire platoon.
The kitchen is a sauna. Your family is snuggled together on the couch, pajama-ed and slipper-ed.
“Let’s get the fireplace going, kids!” Dad rubs idle hands together and squares his flannel-y shoulders. Through the heat haze that wafts around you, you watch him lumber to the door for firewood.
Sweat trickles down your back. You want to lick the cold glass of the kitchen windows for relief.
Dad shivers as he returns from the porch and calls out to tell you how lucky you are to be inside on SUCH a frigid day.
