Turkey for Dinner
We always have a few friends in for Thanksgiving every year, mostly folks who don’t have family nearby. I guess we don’t either — this is our family. A few years back we had Dr. J____, a neighbor lady who preferred the Dr. added to her name, a PhD in business, giving her the right to ask, I suppose.
We’d pretty much sated ourselves on the abundance of the South End, gluttons for tryptophan overdoses, and maybe that was the reason Doc J decided as we cleared the debris before a second round of desserts to clear her throat and suggest, this Day of Thanks, that we go around the table, each one of us bloated feasters, and declare How We’d Like to Die.
“I’ll go first,” the good doctor volunteered. “I’ve given this some serious thought.”
Holy cranberry sauce, I thought as we all sat stunned. Before I could manage to sit bolt upright and offer objection, the professor was launched into her dream demise, a drowning at sea with her little dog Toto on her around-the-world cruise in her 40 foot sailboat. I could feel my turkey and dressing and mashed potatoes colliding with the yams and creamed beans and peas baked in onions. They were waging a war south of the duodenal canal and nobody was inclined colonward.
Finished with her preferred death, she turned to us future corpses and asked who was next? She looked at the person on her left but before that turkey-eater could launch into a thanatopsis, I raised a leg bone and demanded a halt to this. “It’s Thanksgiving,” I cried, “not a funeral. How about we go around and say what we’re thankful for? Jeez!”
Some folks are looking forward to Armageddon. They’ll tell you they’re the ones who’ll be saved, carried up to the Promised Land when the Rapture comes. Me, I’m gonna be glad to be left behind. And I was glad when the doctor finished dessert and left for home. Turns out she almost died near the Fijis on her ill-fated cruise. I guess you should be careful what you wish for. Or at least what others wish for you ….
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