A Joke to be Thankful For

The pressures of shopping for the Thanksgiving meal on a stupid man like me.

Recent column topics: "Doesn't know how to use tissues"; "Doesn't know about cars"; "Doesn't know how to organize his closet"; and now "Doesn't know how to cook"? I'm actually starting to miss the posts about baseball.

Outta Leftfield: The pressure and payoff of the Thanksgiving meal
Published: Tuesday, November 23, 2010
By Mike Morsch
Executive Editor

When it comes to the planning and preparation of the holiday meal, husbands would be well served if their contributions were limited to the eating of said meal.

I guarantee that he refers to Thanksgiving as "Turkey Day" at least once in the course of this column.

Fortunately, I have learned over the years that the only time I should open my mouth on this subject is when I’m stuffing it with stuffing.

But for those who host the Thanksgiving meal, the planning and preparation can be pressure-packed. It is at those times that we as husbands and partners need to be as helpful and supportive as possible.

Check out that alliteration! Someone must have gotten the Writer's Tip O' The Day Calendar for his birthday this year.

The first rule of holiday meal planning is to just shut up and do what you’re told.

So in the span of three paragraphs, we've been told three times that men shouldn't say anything about the holiday meal.

Actually, that’s the first rule of being married, the first rule household chores,

He forgot the "of" in "first rule household chores."

the first rule of home projects and the first rule of assessing the female hind end in a pair of jeans. Truth be told, if we men just paid attention to Rule No. 1, we would be allowed to watch even more sports on TV. We really should have a meeting and adopt that into the Stupid Man Club Bylaws.

Rule No. 1 for hilarity - create elaborate names for fictional organizations!

This year, we are again hosting the family Thanksgiving dinner, which only adds to the madness that is The Blonde Accountant’s life. Not only does she work full time, take care of the house and deal with the trials and tribulations of living with two teenagers and me, she’s always hosted the Thanksgiving meal. And she does so with grace and style.

Wow, I can't imagine working, living with people, and celebrating holidays all at once.

So I decided to do my part to help with the festivities and volunteered to be Vice President in Charge of Pushing the Grocery Cart,

They get funnier by the word.

which fits perfectly into my wheelhouse

Unnecessary use of baseball lingo.

because I perform that duty every week at the grocery store. The holiday grocery cart, however, is a bit of a different beast because we have a tendency to overdo it when comes to the holiday feast to the point that the possibility exists that a second cart will be needed. But I am the muscle and I know my role.

"The holiday" sentence reads like a diseased bowel - long, twisted and crappy.

And when I say “we” have a tendency to overdo it, I of course mean “me,” because I also realize that everything that happens in the grocery store is my fault and I accept that without comment. (See Rule No. 1.)

Rule No. 1 is "shut up and do as you're told." I don't understand how that applies. In fact, I don't even understand what he's saying. Is he picking out the food (a clear violation of Rule No. 1)? Or is he just being blamed?

Certainly, we are thankful for all that we have and that we are in a position to share a bountiful meal with our loved ones. We have eight, maybe nine family members who are scheduled to join us on Thanksgiving.

The complication, however, is that we sometimes end up with enough food for 38, maybe 39 people. I never know where I’m going to find the extra chairs and tables.

He puts food on chairs?

This year, the bird itself and the cranberry sauce seemed to be the most problematic menu items.

“I need about a 15-pound turkey,” said The Blonde Accountant.

I was sure this was a lead-in to a Fictional Conversation. No such luck - yet!

Unfortunately, the store was stocking only 12-pounders and 22-pounders during our time there, which is of course my fault. This created a bit of consternation for The Blonde Accountant as I struggled to maintain the integrity of Rule No. 1.

Hey, it will be funny if you keep referring to this Rule No. 1 thing. Please do so at lease once every other paragraph.

A nice gentlemen working at the grocery store — apparently he was Assistant Butcher in Charge of Stocking the Turkeys in the Freezer — was standing near us during The Blonde Accountant’s harumpfing portion of the turkey dilemma and witnessed the exchange.

Chalk up our third elaborate fictional title.

“You stay here with the 12-pound turkey, I’m going to the other freezer to see if they have bigger ones,” said The Blonde Accountant.

As she vacated the area, the butcher sauntered over to me, got real close to my ear, like he was revealing a state secret about turkeys, and whispered: “I had a lady earlier today who wanted a 20-pound turkey. I had one that weighed 19.97 pounds. She wouldn’t take it because it wasn’t 20 pounds.”

“Did you say anything to her?” I asked.

“No, I just shut up,” he said.

Atta boy. We need to get that guy to the next meeting of the Stupid Man Club to vote aye on Rule No. 1.

It's highly unlikely that this guy would initiate such a conversation. But I appreciate the monumental effort Morsch exerts to make the whole thing seem like a work of Swiftian genius.

We ended up with a 22-pound turkey, which was really no surprise to me.

When we got to the cranberry aisle, The Blonde Accountant exclaimed: “Oh, we need cranberry sauce!” Kind of like she had almost forgotten about it.

“Who eats cranberry sauce in our family?” I asked, which certainly could have been considered a minor infraction of Rule No. 1.

I want to revise my "Rule No. 1" for comedy to read: "Repeat the same joke fifteen times."

“Nobody,” she said as she put the cranberry sauce into the cart.

Hmmm. See, if I would have further questioned the cranberry decision, I risked being flagged for excessive man stupidity as well as violating Rule No. 1.

Alright, that's quite enough, sir.

The answer is quite simple, of course: Cranberry sauce is a traditional part of the Thanksgiving meal and we are thankful to have it grace our table.

Fortunately, I like turkey, so eating the leftovers through the end of March shouldn’t be a problem. As for the cranberry sauce, we will try to share it with someone less fortunate, someone who maybe even likes cranberry sauce.

I don't understand the flow of the last two paragraphs in the least.

There are a lot of things to be thankful for this time of year. One of those is that I have a wife who on top of everything else puts a tremendous amount of love and effort in the holiday meal for her family.

Flag me if you must for a rules violation, but I’m not shutting up about how thankful and appreciative I am about that.

For the record, I'm incredibly disappointed that he didn't say "Turkey Day," and that he deprived us of one last uproarious "Rule No.1" reference.