Ah Thanksgiving, the best holiday of the year in my opinion. It's the one holiday that family you don't normally see fill your house with love and laughter and screaming little children.
In my house, my sister and I help with the cooking, it's great fun. I prance around, make dirty jokes and try to get a rise out of her. In reality, I just want her to loosen up a bit and just have fun with me. She does eventually.
Dinner is always great fun. Once everyone has gotten a few mouthfuls and savored the food and thanked the chefs, the real fun begins. My brother is a natural comedian so anytime we have a family get together, it's expected that we'll leave that get together with a six pack of nicely formed abs. We talk joke about everyone in the family being hard of hearing or deaf in my grandmother's case, we poke fun at one another, recalling childhood memories.
Then it happens. The little child throws up. My poor nephew had taken a bite of steamed apples, cried "It's too hot!" and proceeded to vomit. My sister was the hero of that incident. Before the vomit could get very far, she had her hand there to catch it as it fell. We all stared in mixed horror and admiration. Needless to say, no one ate the apples after that.
It wasn't long after that my festivities were cut short since I had to work. With sad goodbye's and making my family promise to save me some dessert, I headed out the door to my job at a retail chain.
As I entered the parking lot, I couldn't help but be disgusted at the sight of people lining up outside, clutching their coupons and ads, waiting impatiently for the store to open its doors. I wondered why these people weren't at home with their families, what was so important in that store that forced people out of their homes, away from loved ones, to either shop or sell. The greed of this country made me sad.
Thankfully my night passed quickly and without much incident, minus an irate customer and the police having to be called twice, but I was not involved in any of those events. I found this ironic as it was still Thanksgiving and these people were clearly not in a very thankful spirit.
When my shift was over, I hurried home, hoping my family was still awake and ready to play board games. Sadly, most of them had left or gone to bed. My sister and her husband were up, we played Ticket to Ride (great fun by the way.)
Now I head back to my job to work an 11 hour shift on Black Friday. So if you're out and about, please be kind to the employees working. Many of them have been at the store for 10 or more hours and even than, they are trying to help you the best they can. Offer them a smile and your patients, not your anger and attitude.
