JUST ORDER IN

A Thanksgiving Commentary

By

David A. Archer

02/15/1968

11/01/2006

It is always the smells you remember. It is as though there is a huge pile of Thanksgiving smells somewhere that someone drags out again, every year.

Funny how good it always seems to be.. especially in hind sight, even with the same old smells and flavors year after year.

Maybe that is why people drink more and more at such functions, as they age... then again begin to abstain in some seemingly predisposed, parabolic fashion.

If you consider it... it becomes like a rerun of sorts. Through your youth you are exposed to the same "good" smells and flavors year after year. Then maybe somewhere around the 21 st birthday, a person begins to realize that they might be getting a little tired of the same old smells and flavors year after year.... so they begin to enliven the holiday through imbibing.

This then progresses for some time... even well after college I imagine, until that point where ever it may be for individuals respectively - that a person begins that struggle.

It is a struggle in the attempt of recreating those tired old smells and flavors the way you remember them - even through the progressive haze's of those drinking years. Probably to the degree where a wish or two is sent up for directions from some unseen entity to guide your quest "this time" in finding the precise combination of ingredients and timing.

The timing is important most definitely. The way the flavors and smells are layered through the day really has something to do with it.

At least it would appear to be the case.

I think it might have something more important to do with life even. As if it were that only once you have managed to completely reproduce all of those smells in combinations and flavors in variations you may remember and crave, it is okay to die. Not one minute before or after. That isn't to say that you have to then die, but only that one of the big requirements for a peaceful and safe passage will have been met.

God forbid a person actually surpass themselves in some way.

Truly there must be a special hell for such offenses as grotesque they must be in the eyes and opinions of all those other people still struggling to open a can of cranberry sauce along that quest. Especially when it is that boxed dressing is no where near the list of ingredients a person may employ when accomplishing such a feat in the presence of others. Even in the simple course and progress of their life. Speaking from experience, it is better just to "step into the pitch" a little in such situations... maybe even "take a dive" so to speak.

ROT IN HELL I say to those producing quality meals year after year... if only on the part of those seemingly damned to flounder and flop around in the mire and sea of options ready to catch their eye around the time of the holiday. Someone should stick up for them... especially in the face of those possessing any innate qualities of skills in that area.

I personally won't ever prepare another Thanksgiving meal for anyone not of extremely close relation in the manner of significant other. It is quite frankly a damnable thing in regard to the plights of others, and the unspoken insults that rendering such experiences with any ease can bring.

It is a horrible thing to insult the defenseless through generous acts of camaraderie. I know as I have done it a few times and have paid dearly as a result. Like I said, sometimes it is just better to pretend you put your best offering on the table... and let those you should otherwise have sought to prepare an extraordinary meal for, have a moment to gloat at how well they, themselves must be doing.

I suppose it is a respect thing, too. Even in light of the reasons a person might find themselves presenting such a meal for others not of their marital - mating relations.... it is somehow a wiser path to fall short of threatening their existing recollections of the holiday from their own perspectives.

It does sound a bit odd, but there is a sensitivity in that area I have come to find from knowing the wrath of having been kind.

In defense of such angles of perception... and in the interest to not be seen as some one sided presentation here-in, I will note that many times they may not even know exactly what it is that seems to be uneasy about themselves. More directly, about themselves after having experienced something at least comparable to all of those subconscious associations which a holiday such as Thanksgiving carries along. It just usually manifests as some creeping discontent which eventually boils over one way or another.

I won't even cook for my own siblings any more. Sadly, I wouldn't even cook for them if they paid me to... since it is that a catch twenty two develops in that direction as well, in regard to sibling.

If you ask me... when you find yourself in the situation of being the only cook in a group of people around that time of year.... stress vehemently that the best thing to do would be to order in.

If for some reason you find that you have no other option but to cook?

Burn something horribly.