1. Turkey.
I am a vegetarian, Brian. You knew that when you met me. Deal.
2. Travel.
Pasadena, California? That is at least twelve screaming, stinking babies from Miami. I’d rather shoot myself.
3. Your mother.
Evil, Evil, Evil.
4. Football.
You know how this will play out as well as I do, Brian. You’ll spend all day watching football with your dad and the two moose-like brothers who used to lock you in the closet just so they could watch “Dukes of Hazard” instead of babysit you.
In the meantime, I will be relegated to kitchen patrol and have to face down your evil mother while she literally tries to pry my jaws open and stuff my mouth with the damn turkey that she has even given a name to. (Don’t think I’ve forgotten the stuffing incident of ’07. There were giblets, Brian. Giblets!)
5. Alcohol.
There is none of it. None. See #3.
6. Leftovers.
I am not checking a bag full of dark meat, sausage stuffing, and bacon biscuits hoisted upon me by your mother. First of all: it will drive those drug-sniffing dogs crazy, which will totally slow us down and maybe even put us on the no-fly list.
Second of all: Like I’m really going to cart around some salmonella-poisoned carcass that I won’t eat and that would kill you.
Third—and most importantly—checked luggage. CHECKED! LUGGAGE!
7. Last time, your mother called me a “FAT, booze-hounding cow” and lit my hair on fire.
Don’t tell me those birthday candles were an accident. I know.
8. I will not be called FAT.
9. Did I mention your brothers?
Your dad’s OK.
10. Who the hell cares?
I won’t go, Brian. No way. Not in a million years. Not if she was on her deathbed and said I was as thin as Angelina Jolie. And if you love me at all, you will just drop this whole idea and go buy a damn lentil loaf from Whole Foods so we can give thanks like real Americans: alienated from our crappy families and proud of it.
© Copyright 2010 Margaret Finnegan. All rights reserved.
Margaret Finnegan is a frequent contributor to The Rose City Sisters. Her story, “Sweet Revenge,” was voted the 2009 Story of the Year by fellow contributors to this blog. She blogs at Finnegan Begin Again. To read an excerpt of her novel, “The Goddess Lounge,” visit her website.