Another Helping of Stupidity, Please

Thanksgiving, or The Great American Gorge-a-Thon, is the time when we reflect on our lives and the things we are most thankful for. For most people, that is. I, on the other hand, view this particular holiday in light of stupidity. Mine, mostly, but occasionally others’ poor judgment, oversights and plain old bad luck factor in as well.

The combination of family, friends and the familiar comforts of home align strangely for me each and every year, culminating in a single act that generally defines the holiday weekend. Some years, it’s something minor: my drivers license, accidentally thrown away a few days earlier, is discovered after a frantic search the day before having to use it as ID to board a plane; or my car dies, stranding me at my parents’ house before another plane trip. Other times, it’s convenience that is lost: After a domestic “accident”, I sprained my ankle on Thanksgiving eve, two days before my first real business trip. Said accident was caused by an ill-advised regression to childhood — my sister, Dana, and I were jumping on my mom’s new couch and I fell off. Not so uncommon, I suppose. Children often get hurt while roughhousing. Except that I was 26 years old at the time. As a result, my first shot at proving my business savvy and overall maturity became more of a comic punchline than a success.

Another time, my boyfriend’s romantic gesture of driving onto a beach in Florida for a private afternoon stroll resulted in our getting stuck in wet sand. After trying to dig and force our way out, a passing tow truck pulled us to safety, only to have its grappling hook get stuck in our bumper. We had to wait for someone to arrive with a crowbar to pry it off, nearly taking off the bumper in the effort.

But the epitome of Thanksgiving Doom has to be the year my family got locked out of our house after returning from dinner at my cousins’ house. A freak power failure rendered the electric garage door — our standard entry point — useless, and since we never use the front door, no one had thought to bring a house key. After two hours of sitting in the car waiting for the power to come on, we got tired of family togetherness and decided to take matters into our own hands. My dad dislodged a patio brick and smashed in the glass door in the backyard, setting off our blaring home alarm system and scaring the bejesus out of me. We walked into the house, turned off the security system, called our monitoring service to report the false alarm, and then collapsed in tears and laughter as the power immediately came back on.

This year was my first Thanksgiving as a Californian, and since my journey so far had already been mired in bad luck and stupidity, I thought maybe it would be best to spend the weekend in controlled isolation, in the safety of my bed. But my sister had planned a small gathering and a large dinner, so I decided to try and beat the odds and venture out. I didn’t hit any traffic on the drive from Long Beach to LA, dinner was prepared to perfection and mutual enjoyment, and everyone was having a good time. Then the call came in.

My sister’s friend Alicia had been planning to drive to Arizona to meet her husband and in-laws for the holiday. She was en-route when she noticed her car was acting a little wonky. She decided to turn around and head home, rather than risk the car breaking down in the middle of the desert somewhere. Not long after she did her about face, some other cars were signaling to her that her tires weren’t right. She was pulling over to the side of the freeway, when her tire shot right off her car, across four lanes of traffic, jumped the divider, and lodged itself under a Winnebago going in the other direction. Miraculously, no one was hurt and there was no major damage to either of the vehicles (except for the obvious lack of tire on her car).

Alicia got home and called us to say she would be joining us for dinner, once her heart started beating at a more regular pace. I was floored. This seemed like the sort of thing that could only happen to me and my family on Thanksgiving. It had all the classic signs: random events that cause stress, but no permanent damage; bizarre and unlikely circumstances; and the resulting story to share for the entertainment of holiday guests…once the adrenaline had dissipated enough for speech to resume.

At this point, I thought of The Thanksgiving Stupidity Curse, and I was going to mention to my sister that maybe Alicia took a bullet for us this year, sparing us from experiencing the curse for ourselves. Just then, Dana burst into the yard to tell me that the love of her life, her eight-pound dog, Nemo, was missing.

Nemo is a funny little love of a dog who never lets his one gimpy leg get in the way of a good romp. And just because he leads the most loved and spoiled life possible for any dog, doesn’t mean he won’t jump at the chance to escape out an open door and explore a bit of the big world. Since he’s so small, it’s easy to overlook him if you’re not watching, and with all the party guests coming in and out, he must have slipped out at some point.

Our guests were all drinking and talking in the yard, but Dana has an uncanny sense for knowing when Nemo’s in trouble, and somehow she just felt that he wasn’t in the house. She went in from the back yard to look for him, and immediately panicked when he wasn’t in his usual spots. She came out to get me, and we both went flying through the house and out the front door to look for him.

It only took one or two calls from his mama to get Nemo to come prancing home from his neighborhood adventure, tail wagging and tags jangling. He was scooped up and smothered with hugs and kisses from a near hysterical Dana, while I calmed her with the knowledge that he was home and was safe and that all is well that ends well, especially on Thanksgiving…until next year.