A Thanksgiving Post for the Travelers

Several of you felt a little left out during the Thanksgiving Survey because you will be traveling to other locations rather than sponsoring the event yourselves. Since you will not be cooking, you apparently don't need to choose between pork rinds or skewered green beans for your side dishes. So Joshua, pack your kids in the car with the diapers and milk cups, because this post is for you!

For those of you feeling out of the loop, I want you to know that I too will not be cooking during Thanksgiving Dinner. In fact, I will never get to cook for Thanksgiving. You see, I took my own Thanksgiving Survey and answered mostly B.  A Type B cook is someone who doesn’t understand enough about cooking to know the significance of say, baking powder. If baking powder is so important for that batch of cookies, why does the recipe only call for like a teaspoon of it?

Apparently cooking isn’t that logical, because that little dab of baking power is fairly important to the performance of the cookies. And also, if you are trying to make brownies and you have no eggs in your house, there is nothing you can put in brownie mix that will substitute for the eggs. Don’t even try it. As you can probably guess, a lot of times when baking I tend to give up and just eat the batter.

So, being a Type B cook, no one ever lets me do anything in the kitchen during holidays.  I think the problem is that no one has appreciation for the unexpected. Cookies have to rise, and turkeys have to arrive at the table un-charred with absolutely no room for error. Therefore, I will be joining all of you who will get in a car and drive somewhere. Some of us, like Debihen, are driving to see friends. Some, like Elizabeth Francois, will be on the way to the in-laws. Some of you are joyful about it, some of you are apprehensive.

I belong in the crowd of the apprehensive. It has come to my attention recently, that some of you think there is something wrong with me. Not that there is anything wrong with having something wrong with me. Well, I guess there is something wrong, because wrong is the recognized definition of having something wrong. Anyway, I think you see my point. Or not.

This whole thing started out when a friend of mine told me to read an article for people with Asperger’s Syndrome. I was a little put out by the implications of this, but it turned out to be a good article (See How to Establish Rapport in the Workplace). Next, @eldergeek, in a totally unrelated situation, sends me a link so I can test myself for autism. A test which I PASSED by the way. Wait, which way is it if there is nothing wrong with you, to pass, or to not pass? Whichever one it is where there is nothing wrong with me, that is the way it went. Okay? So there is NOTHING wrong with me.

That being said, I think there might be something wrong with me. Take Thanksgiving, for example. These types of holidays usually involve getting together with extended family and hugging. I should point out here, that I don’t like hugging strangers. And by strangers, I am including distant cousins, close cousins, aunts, uncles, in-laws and the elderly. Also, I hate that thing where people greet you by kissing you on the cheek. Kissing on the cheek takes the whole greeting thing way too far. My husband’s family is the kissing on the cheek variety. Some of them even want to even kiss both cheeks, which I definitely consider as overkill. Maybe, if I admit something is wrong with me, I can forgo all of this cheek kissing and live a normal life. Or an abnormal life, whatever it is you do after you admit to having a syndrome.

This should help cut down on the cheek kissing.

Another problem I have is people talking to me. Sometimes I don’t mind when people talk to me. Sometimes people say things like, “I read your blog and it is so funny!” I like talking to those people. However, my relatives never read my blog. Mainly because I hide it from them at all costs. So, they usually say something like, “How is your job going?” And I usually say something like, “Fine.” Then they look at me oddly because now the conversation is at a standstill. I try hard to think of something I can say that will be entertaining without pissing anyone off. Nothing ever comes readily to mind.

Caution: If you throw off the rhythm of the conversation, you risk pushing everyone to the default topic of football.

In an effort to keep the conversation going, I will usually expand upon my previous statement, muttering something like, “Really fine.” The disappointed relative wanders away and I consol myself for this failure with a few gulps of wine. Then, another relative approaches. There is hugging, a couple of face kisses, and finally an animated question to which I can tell they are expecting a compelling answer, “How is your job going?” Sigh.

It’s been a long life already. I should have been an octopus.