Thanks For Giving

We don't usually eat Turkey and Mashed Taters and stuff on Thanksgiving, 'cause me and my little brother grew up eating that junk six times a week out in the country.

That Turkey Thing is just Standard Dinner to us.

So usually we do a lumberjack breakfast thing at my moms, with pancakes and french toast and bacon and sausage and shit-on-a-shingle (which is biscuits and a milky sort of sausage-gravy), and then I go home sweating maple syrup and I sleep like a snake for a week while I digest it all.

But not this time.

Nope, this time we're doing Thanksgiving at my little brother's wife's house.

With her humongous catholic family (my family has four adult members, hers has about twenty).

Not really looking forward to all the noise.

And the funny thing is, it ain't the twenty kids that make all the racket over there, the kids are actually pretty damn soft-spoken and polite and gentle for kids, its the female adults that beat pots and pans together and wear out my delicate hermit-like mad scientist nerves with all their cackling and howling heh.

I'm just used to peace and quiet, y'know, people in my family only raise their voices in an emergency, and I got sensitive ears, I can hear the heartbeats of the mice scurrying around under the snow and shit like that ahaha.

So I usually spend my time outside the house smoking on the back porch when they make me go over there, just to keep from getting frazzled and worn out by it all.

And it'll probably be a Traditional Thanksgiving Dinner, that ain't as good as my mom woulda made it ('cause she's an awesome cook and I'm totally spoiled in that department) so that'll suck.

And standing in line with forty other people with a plate in my hand ain't really my idea of a Nice Family Dinner heh.

But whatever, I gotta go to this thing 'cause I ditched out on my brother's wife's birthday.

And if I don't go, my brother's wife will start thinking I don't like her.

And if she starts thinking I don't like her, she'll annoy the shit out of my brother with that insecurity junk, and my brother is already worn thin beyond belief and teetering on the edge of some kinda nasty nuclear meltdown that nobody else in my family but me could even imagine because they ain't got the psychic link to him that I do.

And that'll bug my mom.

And if my mom gets bugged, then that'll bug my stepdad.

And then my mom and my stepdad will bug me.

So its the Old Pony Show for me, gotta go over there and do the mentally exhausting Hannibal the Cannibal thing and wave my magical fake personality around to keep everybody happy.

This is just one of those things where its sorta hard to stop the train from going where its wants to go, even though it sucks.

I mean, its not like I'm a bad guy or something, that's why they want me around so fucking much in the first place heh.

But they really are sorta blackmailing me into performing for them by threatening to hurt each other if I don't, y'know?

Well, from my point of view, at least.

And thats pretty fucked up.

And its only gonna get worse unless I figure it out a little better and do something.

'Cause I ain't got as much energy left over for this kinda junk as I used to have, and that ain't gonna get better from here on out, either.