Thanksgiving Mishaps

The morning team usually has a topic of the day, and a couple of days this week...it centered around Thanksgiving mishaps. That reminded me of the year of the terrible, awful, horrible, no-good, very bad Thanksgiving. It was before my blogging days, so I thought I'd pull that out of the chronicles of Bekah history and share it with you. So without further ado...please set your mind back to 2003 and check out my Thanksgiving weekend.

I was supposed to host Thanksgiving and had been looking forward to it...but the closer it got, the worse the guest list became. Between lack of interest and illness, the list had dwindled to five (including me) by the week of Thanksgiving. I was ready to cancel the whole thing, but Mom would have none of it.

The day before Thanksgiving was rough. I felt like the worst hostess ever because of all the cancellations, and I had love life drama on top of that. Not a good combo. So that evening I sat down to write in my journal. I glanced up from my chair to see my unpaid credit card bill sitting in the bill box.

But wait....hadn't a credit card bill just come in the mail THAT DAY??

I rushed into the other room and ripped open the new bill and...yep. There it was. Late fee and finance charge. I NEVER have late fees and finance charges. It goes against everything I believe in. Irritated, I put aside the journal and headed to the bank to transfer money to pay my bill.

I knew I wouldn't have enough gas to get to the mall...where I could pay the bill in person, so I stopped to put gas in my car. The pump wouldn't work. I went inside to see if there were problems, or if I truly was too stupid to pump gas. Three other people walked in at the same time with the same problem. We were advised to just move along to the next gas station. I drove all the way to the mall with my gas cap open, my gas tank mostly empty, new tears in my eyes, and paid my bill.

Turkey Day went well until I got ready to make the stuffing and realized I had forgotten the recipe called for celery. I called Mom and asked her if she could pick some up, since I had all the candles burning already and couldn't leave the house. Lunch went off without a hitch until we heard an odd sound that resembled running water. To my shock and horror, my red three wick candle had developed a leak in one side and wax was pouring down the side of the candle, over the top of the buffet, down the front of the buffet and making a lovely pool of wax on my beige carpet. The only thing worse than having that happen is having your homeowner sitting right there when it happens!!! (My sister owned my house at that time and rented it to me.) So while everyone rested and relaxed after lunch, I used up a half a roll of paper towel ironing red candle wax out of my carpet and broke my thumb nail chipping it off the front of the buffet. Sigh.

The day after Thanksgiving, I broke every rule in my book and rolled out of bed to hit an early sale. I told one of my friends later that day, that obviously I've come a long way since college where I wouldn't even step foot outside the bedroom unless I looked ready to go to an interview. That morning, I brushed my teeth, threw on a sweatshirt and drove to the mall. I ran through the parking lot in the dark and rain to get inside to stand in line for ten minutes to buy three sets of dishes. You ever tried to carry three sets of separately bagged dishes through a store that no longer has aisles, and through a dark, wet parking lot full of crazed drivers who have no regard for pedestrians?? IT IS NOT FUN!!!!! All the way home I said, "Please, God. Don't let anyone hit me. I don't care what they do to my car...it has insurance. But if anything happens to these dishes I just about killed myself to get...I will cry!!!!"

For the record - that was the LAST time I did any Black Friday shopping. Not. Worth. It.

And here's hoping for a better Thanksgiving this year!