You know what’s crazy? I’ll tell you what’s Crazy.
Thanksgiving.
It’s wonderful and rejuvenating but at the same time it can be CRAZY!
I’ve seen a few Thanksgivings in my day and they often start out with the best intentions.
Family members arrive wearing their best clothes and using their best manners.
Please and thank you are plentiful like gas in a women’s prison.
Men get out of their seats to offer a woman a spot on the couch.
Women smile politely at the dumbest of jokes.
It is a Norman Rockwell painting set to hypnotic mood music.
But as the days go by, a relaxed, insouciant attitude can begin to take hold.
Hugs are replaced by friendly smiles and waves.
The dishes piled in the sink you washed yesterday, become a point of irritation today.
48 hours into the holiday experiment; and the good ship Lolly Pop is meandering toward doom, destined to crash into the family tree of insanity.
Suddenly, stories are revealed that should never be told.
Alcohol is consumed by people who should never drink.
Emotions erupt, anger explodes, tears pour down the cheeks of pouting, depressed little whiners.
The drama is thick and often manifests itself at the most inappropriate of times. The thanksgiving experiment can be easily explained. Too many people crammed into too small a space, sucking oxygen out of rooms designed for less humanity.
It’s similar to a social experiment where lab mice are piled into a tube and then observed for signs of social breakdown.
Too many right angles and sugar cubes is bound to make anyone crazy.
The Thanksgiving Experiment is easy to see. Instead of mice and mazes, you have frantic people in airports and planes.
Sweat drips and tension escalates with so much as a wrong look.
Can a little underarm perspiration be such a catalyst for trouble?
At a TSA checkpoint, the answer is yes.
Add a snow flake in Denver or a wind gust in Charlotte, a sweaty guy who mentions the word Ebola.
Bam.
Would the owner of the dead baby please report to the back of the bus.
I’m just saying, pressure equates to crazy moments.
Hey, Uncle Harold, put your pants back on. Nobody wants to see that?
Driving becomes NASCAR. Fighting for 10 foot spaces of rolling pavement.
Taxis suddenly have to dodge protesters lying in the street.
Tension mounts in flying sardine cans all over the radar screen.
One adam 12. See a man about a dog.
Huh? Exactly.
The social experiment is on. Grandma’s house becomes a steal cage match in the WWF.
Airports are human blenders whipping anxiety into a sweaty cheese wiz.
It’s no wonder that the holidays are a time when suicides rise, middle fingers rise, tension rises.
But once you navigate the maze, the tension, the blender of inanity, the holidays are a wonderful time for renewed spirit and joy.
It all depends on how you handle the great social experiment known as life.
Thanksgiving is a time to give thanks. It is a time to remember those we have lost and cherish the time we have left with those we love.
Thanksgiving is wonderful. Thanksgiving is American. Thanksgiving is crazy.
Hug a pilgrim.
Thanksgiving is wonderfully American crazy!