Sassy Black Friend

5 Things I Learned at Thanksgiving

1. There is a limit to how much mashed potatoes you should eat. It doesn’t matter how delicious they are. That limit is well short of where I stopped. Ouch. Goat cheese mashed potatoes are not my friend anymore.
2. Babies of family members that don’t like you are going to love you. In my case, it was a cousin who has always hated me, for reasons I’m not aware of. She acts like I slapped her in a past life. But, her 18 month old loved me. He followed me around for over an hour, then screamed and clung to my leg when they were leaving.
3. There’s no limit to the crazy things your stranger relatives will do. My father’s youngest sister lives in Boston, and she drove a rented truck to Thanksgiving. She told us it was full of stuff she’d forgotten in a self storage facility. She was 6 months late on the bill, and had to take everything out or they were going to sell it. So, she’s going to drive around with it until she figures out what to do with it.
4. Cleavage is a dangerous thing at family holidays. My uncle’s new girlfriend was wearing a dress cut down almost to her waist. She’s a lovely woman, but come on. No one talked about anything else when she left the room, and my cousins were daring each other to throw things in there. Not wise.
5. Constant drunkenness is the way to go. Dragging fake Little Sister around all weekend to bars with my old friends was great. They thought it was adorable to see her drink, and paid less attention to me, so I could concentrate on my drinking. The family is also much nicer when they know you’re hung over. Who knew.