My first Thanksgiving in New York City was what some would call a shit-storm. Not only was I sick with some sort of horrible mutated flu, but also the East Coast was in the beginnings of the “Polar Vortex”. My first thanksgiving in the big apple, thousands of miles away from home, was spent being sick and cold, like some sort of peasant during the French revolution.
This wasn’t an isolated incident. No, no, my friend, throughout my adult life I’ve had a string of horrible Thanksgivings that have tie me to the idea that Thanksgiving sucks.
One year was marked by a family feud and a cold meal. The next year? I had a lonely takeout dinner with an early morning Black Friday shift. The year after that? I woke up to my parked car totaled by a hit-and-run. My distaste for turkey day isn’t limited to my own personal and perhaps slightly dramatic anecdotes.
To me Thanksgiving is a gluttonous holiday that claims to have roots in a vaguely mythological supper shared between the useless American Pilgrims and the generous Native Americans. You know, the same Native Americans we later stole land from and systematically slaughtered. In addition, before the last bite of turkey has been bitten, most Americans are already halfway to their local mall to flood into stores and grab the hot shopping deals that await them.
I’ve worked in retail on Black Friday and believe I have truly seen the soft pale underbelly of humanity.
On Thanksgiving people get trampled on, dive into all out brawls and sink deeper into debt before you can pack up the leftovers mashed potatoes.
Perhaps I’m just being a curmudgeon. Perhaps I’ve simply let a series of bad experiences, and my inherent jadedness negatively effect my impression of a beloved American holiday.
So this year I’ve decided that I will do my best to avoid any disasters that could ruin my Thanksgiving.
I’ve been loading up on Vitamin-C so I won’t get sick. I don’t have a car so nothing of mine can get hit-and-run. I have no dinner reservations to make, and I have no Black Friday sales to work. I do however have to help cook a Thanksgiving meal for about ten people.
What’s my contribution to the meal? The turkey, obviously.
It’s my first time cooking a turkey and also my first time cooking anything more complicated than white rice. So I’m begginh for disaster.
As I’m writing this I can already feel my heart prickle in anxious anticipation of my culinary failure. But I’m hoping with all my might that this will be my first Thanksgiving in a long time that won’t suck. Then again, whoever decided to put this talentless half-wit in charge of cooking a turkey, is practically begging for an unmitigated disaster.
I hope you all have a Happy Thanksgiving because, for heaven’s sake, someone should have a good one.
Thanksgiving Sucks: A Metro editor shares his distaste for turkey day
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