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At Least It Wasn’t the Toilet
How a Firepants Family Thanksgiving Goes Down:
The week before:
- Cap’n Firepants buys a 75 pound turkey that will be eaten by approximately 6 people.
- Mrs. Cap’n Firepants begs to go to a restaurant.
- Cap’n Firepants says that he loves to cook the Thanksgiving meal. It’s just the cleaning he does not enjoy. There is an implication there that Mrs. Cap’n Firepants does not like.
- Mrs. Cap’n Firepants begs to go to a restaurant.
The day before:
- Cap’n Firepants buys his favorite pecan pie from Bill Miller’s, and starts preparing items for the meal.
- Mrs. Cap’n Firepants despairs of going to a restaurant. Once the pie has been purchased, the wheels have been set in motion.
The day of:
- Cap’n Firepants begins to cook the turkey, cleaning the kitchen as he goes along.
- Mrs. Cap’n Firepants is thankful that she has married the greatest husband in the world, and that her anti-depressant seems to be kicking in.
- Wonderbutt waits in the kitchen for delectable bits to be dropped on the floor.
- The Globetrotters (the cousins, not the basketball team) arrive.
- The kitchen sink backs up, upchucking disgustingly dirty water into the ice machine and all over the kitchen floor. Decidedly unappetizing.
- Mrs. Cap’n Firepants begs to go to a restaurant.
- Wonderbutt tries to help by licking up the dirty water.
- The plumber is called, and valiantly arrives in record time so he can charge us time and a half and another half for working on a holiday. About how much it would have cost to go to a restaurant.
- The kitchen sink is fixed.
- Wonderbutt refrains from eating the plumber.
- Thanksgiving dinner is saved, and only twice as much cleaning needs to be done.
- Mrs. Cap’n Firepants strongly considers feeding the leftovers to Wonderbutt, but is slightly concerned he will explode, forcing her to clean the kitchen for a third time.
The next day:
- Mrs. Cap’n Firepants begs to go to a spa.
Not our plumber. I think. Definitely not our house. It’s too clean.
photo credit: John Carleton via photopin cc
I am Thankful for My Favorite Anti-Depressant
Our bulldog, Wonderbutt, does not really understand the whole concept of our American Thanksgiving.
He seemed a bit miffed when I mentioned that he will not be feasting with the rest of us.
Despite his lack of social skills, I am thankful for Wonderbutt. It’s ironic that a dog who looks so mournful all of the time can always put a smile on my face.
Happy Thanksgiving from the Firepants Family!
The Wonderbutt Workout
In two more days and a few hours, Americans all over the globe will be stuffing themselves silly and giving thanks every time their quarterbacks make a home run. (Okay, I might have mixed that up a bit; maybe it’s the quarterbacks who get stuffed and the rest of us run home.) In honor of the misery and regret that all Thanksgiving revelers will be feeling on Friday morning, I would like to offer you the Wonderbutt Workout program. (Note that Wonderbutt is not the one who is actually working out in this video. In fact, he seems to have gained a few pounds ever since he started implementing this exercise routine.)
Sorry about the abrupt ending, but at least you got a chance to hear the Delightful Giggle of Dimples in between Wonderbutt’s Completely Innocuous Snarls.
Now, I know that some of you might be concerned about the scarcity of the necessary equipment for embarking on this workout journey – namely, Wonderbutt – but I can assure you that if you tie a rope to your sofa and drag it across the floor, you will achieve the same results. Even better, pick the sofa that has your Uncle Krackpot still snoring on it, passed out from his 24-hour eating binge, and you will probably duplicate the Wonderbutt Workout experience quite perfectly.
You’ll Never Find the Skeleton in my Closet Because It’s Buried Under All of the Other Junk
When do real people clean out their closets? Seriously. I ask this because I have been polling my fellow teachers about what they will be doing when we get the whole week off for Thanksgiving next week, and nearly all of them said that they will be cleaning out closets. This is the same response I get when I ask what they are doing for Spring Break or the rare three-day weekend. And summers.
I, too, plan to exorcise the demons lurking in my closets during the break next week.
Which leads me, again, to the question, “When do real people clean out their closets?” ”
“Real people”, meaning “not teachers.” Also not multimillionaires like The Man Who Must Not Be Named Because I Don’t Want You to Think I am Obsessed With Him, who probably has people to do that for him. Real people.
I mean, do you just not clean your closets out? Ever? Is it because you are so obsessively compulsively neat? Or, is it because you never buy awful-looking purple polka dot shirts that seem quite fashionable at the time, but never seem like the quite right thing to wear whenever you are getting dressed in the morning and so you have to buy more things so you don’t leave the house naked and then they don’t fit anymore and you suddenly have this traffic jam of clothing on rods in your closet which makes it easier to just throw things (clean or dirty) on the floor so you don’t get attacked by a hanger that suddenly cuts loose from the two different shirts that were entwined around it, nearly blinding you in the right eye and forcing you to question the need to actually wear anything other than yoga pants and a t-shirt for the rest of your life? Are you saying this does not happen to you?
That’s just not normal.
I know. You’re like Monica on “Friends”. You have that one locked closet where you stash everything so the rest of your place looks neat. She wasn’t a teacher, either.
http://friends.wikia.com/wiki/The_One_With_The_Secret_Closet
Slam Dunk for the Globetrotters!
I would like to thank our well-traveled cousins, the Globetrotters, for the worst best Thanksgiving ever. That might sound oxymoronic, but to those of you who are blogging addicts, it will make perfect sense. Our hosts pretty much offered THE superlative Thanksgiving experience. Great for our family. Very mundane blogging material.
You know you are addicted to blogging when you start yearning for holidays past with the dysfunctional families of ex-boyfriends who, after they downed their jello molds and Bud Lights, came to blows with anyone who asked you to pass the ketchup for the deviled eggs. Yep, good times.
The Globetrotters live in Houston, so Wonderbutt and Mrs. P.I.B. missed out on the grand feast – partly the reason that our days were less eventful than usual. Although the Globetrotters have two adorable canines of their own, their dynamic doggie duo have much better manners than our irascible beasts.
Mrs. Globetrotter cooked everything, saving us all from the food poisoning that would have resulted from my culinary contributions and from a kitchen stacked high with pots and covered with flour that would have resulted from a meal prepared by Cap’n Firepants.
The food was delicious, and the exact perfect amount. There weren’t ten thousand cakes and pies and salads of every sort filling up every available surface and hollering at you that you will suffer the eternal vengeance of any relative whose food you did not sample and declare the best darn dish of cream cheese plus whatever.
So, I want to thank you, Globetrotters, for giving us our picture-perfect Thanksgiving. I wouldn’t wish any disasters on you because you’ve been through enough, but we may have to host next time so we can have a teeny tiny kitchen fire or Wonderbutt can snatch the turkey off the table and try to drag it out the dog door to his pen to add some extra seasoning.
The Globetrotters' Dynamic Duo Attempt to Replace the Entertainment Provided by the Sexy Lady on the T.V.
Enough with Togetherness. It's Time to Divide and Conquer the Human Couch Potatoes.
Geez, People, Let Me Get Some Sleep!
That Boxer is a Total Lightweight! Jack Russells Never Stop. Never! Never, Ever...
You Don’t Need to Drop a Rock on Me
I am a recovering TV-aholic.
My Thanksgiving story will demonstrate just how far gone I was.
When I was 10, I woke up in the hospital one day with about 8 people surrounding my bed.
It was news to me that I was in the hospital, as I had been in a coma for three days. I didn’t know half the people looking down on me, and I was a little freaked out to have a bunch of tubes and wires attached to various parts of my body.
After establishing that I was in a hospital in New York (we lived in New Jersey at the time), and that I was alive, my next question was what day of the week it was.
“Sunday.”
“Sunday??!!!!!! Is Nancy Drew on yet?”
Yep. That was my number one concern. Nancy Drew and the Hardy Boys were my LIFE. They came on every Sunday, and there were no VCR’s or DVR’s or friggin’ Hulu. You watched it when it came on or you waited until the summer for the reruns. Period.
So, one of the nurses went to get a T.V., and rolled it into the I.C.U., while all of the adults chuckled thankfully that at least the television-addicted portion of my brain had apparently not been effected by my coma.
I had Reyes’ Syndrome, and I was darn lucky to be alive. Even these days (that was 33 years ago), this illness is deadly – quickly attacking the liver and the brain with a vengeance. It is linked to aspirin use, but no one is quite sure what causes it. Hence the “Syndrome” part of its moniker.
I got out of the hospital on Thanksgiving, a few days earlier than the doctor really felt advisable. But I wanted to be with my family during the holiday.
And I was not satisfied with the television options in my hospital room.
You see, every Thanksgiving I watched one particular show – the Laurel and Hardy version of Babes in Toyland, AKA March of the Wooden Soldiers. And I was not confident enough in the three channels at the hospital to deliver on this tradition.
Barely able to walk, I fooled everyone into thinking I was well enough to go home. Comfortably ensconced in my bedroom with my grandmother’s old black and white television set in front of me, I tried my best not to throw up while I laughed at Stan and Ollie’s mishaps in Toyland.
I fully recovered from my Reye’s Syndrome. And, believe it or not, I’m pretty much over my TV-aholism.
But I still like to watch Stan and Ollie on Thanksgiving (thankfully now available on DVD). While I watch, I always send out some brainwaves of gratitude to the doctors and nurses who saved my life. And to the Stan’s and Ollie’s of the world who help me to enjoy living it.
[Silas Barnaby, the Toyland villain, disappears down a well. Stannie and Ollie corner him.]
Stannie Dum (Stan Laurel) : You better come up dead or alive!
Ollie Dee (Oliver Hardy) : How can he come up dead when he’s alive?
Stannie Dum (Stan Laurel) : Let’s drop a rock on him. That’ll make him dead when he’s alive.
Ollie Dee (Oliver Hardy) : Now you’re talkin’.
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