Jeneration X: One Reluctant Adult's Attempt to Unarrest Her Arrested Development; Or, Why It's Never Too Late for Her Dumb Ass to Learn Why Froot Loops Are Not for Dinner (5 page)

Stacey blanches. “That is a crime against humanity.”

“Right? Plus, she believed that we should be all Norman Rockwell–y and, like, sit around in candlelight and listen to carols, and you know what? That’s a lovely thought and we should pencil that in. But when everyone’s gathered in the family room and we’re all quietly enjoying each other’s company for once by hanging out and watching the James Bond marathon on TBS,
that
is not the time to yank the television cord out of the wall and demand we share our feeeeelings. Because we feeeeel? Like watching
Goldfinger
.”

Stacey laughs and says, “That can’t possibly be true,” while I nod emphatically. We arrive at WFM and find a cherry parking spot on the second floor next to the door. We exit the car and enter the store, taking the long escalator that dumps out right by the bar. “Need to cocktail up before you finish the story?”

“Yes, but I won’t. Oh, and this
totally
happened, most recently from Thanksgiving 1992 through 1994 until my brother’s family entirely stopped coming for that holiday, and Christmases 1999 through 2006.”

“Oy.” We grab matching carts and begin to peruse the most perfect stack of Honeycrisps. Each one is the size of a softball and they easily weigh one and a half pounds. We both murmur in admiration while we stuff them in plastic produce bags.

“Yep. Hey, speaking of—sometimes my mother would take the thing my father dreamed about all year, her one home-run swing, the apple pie—and she’d substitute zucchini instead. Just because. Ask me how well that went over. I mean, I appreciate her looking out for my father’s health, but it’s one freaking dinner over the course of three hundred and sixty-five days. Hey, how about we
don’t
make it a fat-free Thanksgiving? I’m not saying she was all Joan Crawford because that’s certainly not the case, but believe me when I say I never looked forward to any holiday.”

Stacey pats me on the arm as we wend our way past the fancy lettuce display. “Then? Every meal ended in recriminations when we’d make my mother angry by accusing her of hiding the butter and emptying all the saltshakers and filling them with No Salt. Which, of course, she did. By the way? When you put Smart Balance HeartRight Light Spread on mashed potatoes? I totally
can
believe it’s not butter. Passive aggression; it’s what’s for dinner.”

Stacey stops in front of the fresh-cut fruit fridge. “Oh, peanut, I’m sorry.”

“It is what it is.” I shrug. “I mean, I’m not all scarred and I don’t need therapy or anything. It’s just that the idea of going over the river and through the woods? Holds no appeal.”

“What about Fletch?”

“Ironically, our traditions were a step up for him. At least
we
had James Bond. Poor Fletch used to get stuck in the mountains of Virginia with no television and his grandmother would boil a chicken for Thanksgiving dinner. She’d serve the big, flaccid, gray mass of meat and say, ‘Let’s eat and get it over with already.’ So when we’re all
A Christmas Story
and order Chinese this year, don’t feel sorry for us because we’re going to have the best non-Thanksgiving Thanksgiving ever.”

Stacey furrows her brow while debating pineapple chunks or rings. Then, after a few seconds she says, “No.”

“No pineapple?”

Stacey bangs on her shopping cart. “No. No, no. You need to celebrate Thanksgiving.”

“What part of my
I hate the holidays
diatribe did you not understand?”

“You don’t
hate
Thanksgiving. You hate conflict. You hate bad food. You hate chaos. Thanksgiving is inherently happy. No one hates Thanksgiving.” She stops herself. “Well, Native Americans maybe. Point is
you
can’t not be happy on a day where pie figures in so prominently. What you need to do is
reclaim
Thanksgiving. You need to flip the script.”

“We tried that last year and it was lame.”

“Because it was just the two of you. This year, you invite guests.”

I protest, “Who’s going to come? Everyone always has Thanksgiving plans.”

“Yeah, miserable plans.
I can, in fact, believe it’s not butter
plans. Plans they’re dreading because they never had your awesome Thanksgiving Day dinner as an option before. Start asking
around. You’ll be surprised at how many people would rather go to your house. I’m telling you, flip the script.”

“But—”

“Flip it.”

“I can’t—”

“Flip. It.”

We’re still debating when we run into our dear friend Gina. She spots us from her table on the second floor where she’s having lunch when she hears the familiar sound of us squabbling.

“Gina, settle an argument for me,” I say. “No one would come to my house on Thanksgiving, right?”

Gina cocks her head. “Why not?”

“Because they have plans. Like you. Where will you be on Thanksgiving?”

“Probably in my house, drinking wine, ignoring the day so I don’t have to be with my annoying relatives,” she replies.

“Aha!” Stacey crows. “
This
is what I’m talking about. If Jen had a Thanksgiving Day dinner, would you come?”

Without hesitation, Gina replies, “Absolutely! I’d much rather drink wine at your house.”

Stacey turns to me. “Told you so.”

I admit it, I like the idea of flipping the script, but the actuality of it may be too much for me to handle. “I panic when I have to cook for more than three people. Remember my dinner party this summer where half the guests never even got fed before they had to leave and I accidentally got hammered?”

Gina helpfully adds, “If I recall, the problem was more that you got hammered and forgot to start dinner. Those cocktails were delicious, though.” I mixed equal parts of passion fruit juice, elderflower liqueur, Prosecco, and Stoli Razberi and all the girls
slammed them like Gatorade on a hot day. [
Primarily because I forgot to tell everyone I included a bottle of vodka.
] Eventually Fletch had to step in to work the grill because he thought we were all so soaked in alcohol that we’d ignite if we got too close.

You see, I’ve become a bit of a mixologist—or, according to Fletch, I’m the Queen of the Girl Drunk Drinks. When we started dating, I drank Johnnie Walker Black and soda. Now when we go out, I’m all, “What do you have with lychee nuts in it?” To me? This is not a bad thing. I mean, I don’t do shots anymore because I hate how they make me feel in the morning. Coincidentally, this is also why I no longer eat Lucky Charms for dinner. Much as I enjoyed both acts, I haven’t the liver or the stomach of a college kid anymore.

Stacey waves away my protests. “When we get home, I’ll send you my Thanksgiving time and action plan. My plan contains everything you need to do from start to finish, so the whole thing is foolproof. No worries.”

“Does this mean we’re having Thanksgiving at your house, Jen?” Gina asks.

“Um…” I stammer.

“Yes,” Stacey replies. “This year Jen learns to flip the script. Now, I think we have some shopping to do.”

Within a few hours, my Thanksgiving Day goes from nonexistent to hosting a dinner for twelve.

Holy crap.

Later in the evening, I receive Stacey’s time and action plan. I sit here at my desk blinking at it, overwhelmed by its precision. Not only does this multiple-paged tome contain an entire menu complete with recipes, but there’s a whole shopping list divided by department and the time action plan breaks out my week in fifteen-minute increments, beginning on Monday.

This is a masterpiece of planning and precision.

To the extent that it’s freaking me out.

I e-mail Stacey the following:
“Somewhere in Connecticut, a chill just raced down Martha Stewart’s back.”

She responds:
“Poor Martha. Sadly, she is not chilled at all. 1) No Jew could ever out-Thanksgiving a WASP like her and 2) I don’t forge my own silverware or weave my own tablecloth, which just makes me lazy. Go over with Fletch, and make your own menu. You can then delete items off the shopping list for the stuff you aren’t making, and add anything new that you need. (Check your herbs and spices, since I have a good stock of those and they aren’t on my shopping list.) Once you have the menu set, we can make an equipment list.”

Equipment list?

I am so over my head right now.

Things begin to go off the rails before I can even get to step one on Monday. Between finishing edits for
My Fair Lazy
and driving downtown for an interview for a syndicated columnist position
with Tribune Media Services, I lose the whole day. I’m officially in panic mode despite having three whole days before the dinner.

“Thanksgiving is ruined!” I wail.

“Nothing is ruined. The world’s not going to end because you couldn’t get to the cranberry sauce or pickled carrots today. Just relax, you can do this,” Stacey assures me. Well, of course she’s calm—she’s not even making dinner. Her extended family switches off holidays, so this year, all she’s got to do is cook soup.

Stacey talks me off the ledge and even promises to spend the day with me on Wednesday helping to prep.

She doesn’t know it yet, but her reward for helping will be watching
Twilight
with me on DVD. [
No good deed goes unpunished, eh?
]

I lose another entire goddamned day to edits, despite my trying to rush. So if you run across errors in
My Fair Lazy
—and you will—please cut me some slack because Stacey’s time and action plan says nothing about budgeting a day for rewrites.

Fletch is delighted with the idea of a houseful of guests. He’s way more excited than I am, actually, likely because he doesn’t grasp the enormity of the work in front of us. He’s making himself useful and he’s even added his own steps to the time action plan, including:

Steam clean the rug

Finish wiring project

Polish floor

Pick up turkey

Iron linens

Secure weapons [
It’s probably a good thing we didn’t have access to any kind of weapons (other than salmonella) during old family holidays.
]

Because of other priorities, we don’t get to WFM until Tuesday afternoon. The minute I see cops directing traffic in and out of the garage, I know we’re in trouble.