Turkey Time!

Don't you love it when there are universal holidays like Thanksgiving and the 4th of July so you don't have to remember anyone's name or pretend you are interested in their colon health? You can just have the same conversation a hundred times a day. "So, what are your Thanksgiving plans?" Even if someone says, "Well, I work at Toys R Us so I have to work at midnight," you have something to talk about! It's fantastic for the lazy and socially anxious.

Talk usually turns to food because Thanksgiving is not about giving thanks (or genocide and smallpox for that matter), it's about how your family makes stuffing. Like most people, I will tell you that my mom makes the best stuffing in the entire world. (The key is the potato bread.) It might be because I'm a Taurus and I flat-out reject change, but I just cannot understand people who try a new recipe for stuffing or cook the turkey a different way from year to year. Honestly, no one in my family eats the damn green bean casserole except my mom but we have to look at it every year. There are certain traditions that must be upheld.

When my sister and I were children, we were ridiculously fond of black olives. We would put them on all of our fingers and wave our strange alien hands at each other before eating all 10 black olives in the space of about 30 seconds. Therefore, black olives are always served at Thanksgiving.

Once during a holiday meal with extended family in my early teens, I just could not get enough of the brown and serve dinner rolls. After my meal, I went ahead and ate about 7 or so more rolls. They were delicious but all of that bread made me thirsty. So I followed it up with club soda. This was a mistake. You see the bubbles in the club soda caused the bread to expand in my stomach, which gave us all a glimpse of what a pregnant 13 year old looks like. I was in agony, my family was in stitches. I can expect to find the basket of rolls and a bottle of club soda on my plate at the start of the meal.

My family is the kind that will never ever let you live down something you did that was either embarrassing or hilarious. Some may find this bothersome, but I find it to be a comfort- they know me and they love me. Sometimes that love manifests itself in generosity, and sometimes that love manifests itself in rolls and club soda. And that's okay by me because OH MY GOD YOU GUYS I LOVE BROWN AND SERVE ROLLS.