It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like Chaos

Don't you just love big Thanksgiving celebrations where everybody contributes? This year my mother bought a large, succulent turkey. My cousin brought a gorgeous spiral ham. My brother brought the plague.

Okay, so maybe he isn’t lurking around Arizona, spreading the actual plague-plague, but you’d be hard pressed to convince those of us who came down with it that it’s merely a cold. After the last of the company left on Sunday I collapsed into the nearest chair. Monday I stayed in bed and wished for death. Tuesday I crawled to the couch and burrowed in under an afghan. Wednesday I propped myself more or less upright with a box of tissue on my lap and sniveled my way through the day. Thursday . . . well, Thursday I felt like walking death, so I got dressed and used what little strength I had to pursue the sanest course of action.

I dragged all the Christmas stuff in from storage and strew it about the house with reckless abandon. (Either I needed a little Christmas right that very minute or my fever had spiked.) After wrecking the halls, I felt fa, la, la, la, blah, so I went back to bed.

As the sun rises on Dewey this Friday morning, pilgrims cavort with penguins on my bookshelf. The Christ child is nestled amongst autumn leaves. Santa is on a turkey shoot. The butler (from Halloween) still stands at the front door, but I put a red cap and scarf on his raven and thrust a festive reindeer mug into his outstretched hand.

I’m sitting at the dining room table with my back to kitchen countertops littered with cookie cutters and laden with china awaiting transport to the hutch. What few silver pieces escaped the garbage disposal really ought to be returned to their chest. The dog, I fear, is stuck to the floor near her food dish. I really need to get up, turn around, and attend to all of that, but it’s frankly not all that high on my list priorities. More pressing still is a fridge oozing forth the fast-fading ghosts of Thanksgiving past. Frugal homemakers the world over simmer leftover poultry bones into fragrant, nourishing broth. Me? I save the pallid, picked-at thing until the carcass could star in a Stephen King screenplay and then perform an exorcism. (If you happen to know any out-of-work priests, please call.)

There may be a lesson here somewhere about seeing to one’s duties in wisdom and order . . . but if so it escapes me. And, speaking of escape, I’m going back to bed. If I’m not up by, say, Ground Hog’s Day, call the plague cart. Also, I’d like my tombstone to read: I Blame Greg.