Every August, the Discovery Channel airs Shark Week. Invariably, the producers of a show do something absolutely ridiculous, like pulverize an entire herd of sheep and dump the chum into the water to see what happens. Generally, an armada of bullet-headed sharks arrive out of nowhere and turn the camera man's shark cage into a frothing, chaotic feeding frenzy. The narrator describes how the sharks go out of control, occasionally chomping at steel fragments of the shark cage or fiberglass sections of the research vessel, completely disoriented and eating everything in a fantastic orgy of food.
Every November, there is Thanksgiving. Americans, already fattened to the brink of physical boundaries find themselves at tables laden with more food than most countries will ever see. Passing, grabbing, stuffing, gorging on food that barely registers on the taste buds. I am pretty sure that at our table, some one passed the butter, and while it was temporarily in his hands on the way to the naked dinner roll, he just went ahead and ate some of the butter. Plain. Because, hey, it was there, and this is the day we eat, dammit.
But, my parents were here. And that is a first for us. In all the years of my marriage, we have always gone to my parents' house. Although my sister and her husband were at his family's house this year (hehe), my kids were here, my husband was here, my parents were here. It was Thanksgiving Dinner at Our House. Things are always different at my house when my parents are here.
This was an ACTUAL conversation between my kids and my mother last night:
Scene: family room, Hot Wheels strewn all over, nearly comatose adults watching football, kids actively playing and begging for dessert. Adults represent a chorus as in the tradition of the Greek Theater.
S: Can we have dessert? I'm hungry.
Adults: Moan. Don't talk about food.
E: What do we have for dessert?
Grandma: Lemon cake.
S: Ew. I hate lemon cake. (S hates everything right now, and has not even had lemon cake. For the record.)
Adults: Too much food. Don't talk about food. Was that pass interference?
G: There is rainbow sherbet in the fridge.
S: Oooh. Yum.
Grandma rises and serves ice cream to the children. Children go off to kitchen to eat ice cream.
One Adult to the next: I think I might have eaten butter. Like plain. Off the butter dish.
Adult #2 responds: Yeah, I heard about that.
Grandma, from family room: Kids!?!? Please hurry and eat your ice cream so I can clean up your cars.
Kids: But what about the lemon cake?!!?
Grandma: You can have the lemon cake after you help me clean up your mess.
Kids: Oh, man. That's not fair.
Grandma cleans family room.
Kids watch.
Adults: First Down! Off sides! Penalty! Kick! Score!
Kids return to kitchen to eat lemon cake.
Grandma retreats to kitchen to serve it to them.
Adults remain on couch.
Grandfather: You know, the kids have been fairly well behaved this week.
Parents: It's tough for them when grandma is around. What with having to supervise the cleaning in between desserts. The Pilgrims had it easy compared to my kids.
Adult #1: Was that butter or some kind of margarine? I'm just asking, what with my cholesterol.
Adult #2: Nope. Butter.
Adults, as one: Too much food. Stop talking about food.
Curtain.
