THANKSGIVING: The Prelude

First there is the Plan. And from the Plan comes the List. The man of the house sits down with the woman of the house and together she decides what the plan for the big holiday will be. “Perhaps some non-traditional dishes” he suggests, “like roast beef or lasagna.” Vetoed. “How about a nice blackberry pie for dessert?” “No way!” she says. “Well, something different in the way of an appetizer maybe?” he ventures. “Nothing adventurous” she replies. So the absolute traditions are upheld and the man of the house graciously defers to the keeper of the Thanksgiving Rituals.

Plans are also considered for the rest of the meals for the week taking into account who will be where and when. With the Plan in hand an inventory of the pantry, freezer and refrigerator is conducted. This leads to a massive cleaning out of products that have reached somewhat beyond their expiration dates. This year we found pecans that were bought for last Thanksgiving, old pickles, salad dressing that expired in 2007, a can of cranberry sauce of the same vintage and various unidentifiable leftovers in un-openable containers. An assessment of the spice shelf shows that at least half of the little bottles are empty. Those that aren’t empty are things that we’ve used once or not at all. So after this entire painstaking process we write the List. It’s pretty easy because now that we’ve cleared out the old stuff we realize we need everything. So we go down to the bank and get a small personal loan. Just kidding. We have a credit card.

With List in hand we now make our plan of attack for shopping. The man of the house puts on his jacket, grabs the car keys and says “let’s go to Rednor’s Market”. The woman of the house says “Hold your horses big boy we have to go through the ads and the coupons first. We’ll find the best deals and go first to Safeway then to Acme then to Super Fresh and then we’ll end up at Rednor’s.” As she gathers all the ads and the big envelope of coupons the man of the house grabs a beer and sits down in his chair. Two days later we’re ready to shop.

Shopping on any weekend is an arduous experience. Shopping on the weekend before Thanksgiving is insane. By the time we’re halfway through the produce section at Safeway I’ve been pushed away from the celery, whacked by a shopping cart near the mushrooms and been cursed at by a little old lady because I was taking too long with the turnips. (Also known as rutabagas) So I turn control of the shopping cart over to my dear wife and I head for the coffee shop near the exit to join the twenty or so other men who are no match for the frenzied horde of women running around the store. An hour or so later my wife makes it through the check-out and we head for the next stop.

The whole process is repeated at the Acme supermarket. After three cups of coffee I need to head home for a pit stop. So we go home and we unload our treasures, and I unload my bladder. By now I’m pleading to my wife to make the next store our last stop. She takes pity on me and we head to Rednor’s.

At Rednor’s the crowd is pretty well behaved. We start through the aisles and I notice that yams here are thirty cents a pound cheaper than where we bought them. I point this unadvertised special out to my wife. A little further on I notice that the green beans are a whopping fifty two cents a can cheaper than Acme which supposedly had the best deal. I point this additional unadvertised special out to my wife. About seven or eight aisles later I’ve pointed out savings that we could have had if we had shopped here in the first place. My wife asks me if I’d be so kind as to go out to the car and get that little bottle of aspirin she keeps in the glove compartment and also to buy a bottle of water. She tells me to take my time and she’ll just finish up the shopping herself. Being the cooperative guy that I am I agree and go do her bidding.

Not too much later she comes out of the store and I ask her if she wants one aspirin or two. She says that she doesn’t need any right now because as soon as she sent me away her headache disappeared. Imagine that. Our grocery shopping is complete and we head home. We finally get everything put away and my wife checked her list. Then I notice she had a fresh piece of paper and she was writing things down. I asked her what was up and she said that there were a few things that I had failed to tell her to put on the list. So she told me that on Monday I would have to go pick them up. I told her that it was no problem, Rednor’s seemed to have the best deals.

Now we have a few days to get things lined up and prepared for the holiday. We usually start doing some of the preparations on Wednesday so that we have time to take me to the emergency room for stitches on Thanksgiving Day. No sense leaving everything to the last minute.

I’ll let you know how it goes this year.

Have a fine day.