The Aftermath

My husband's sister and her family made the six and a half hour drive from upstate New York to join us for Thanksgiving. Other family members were also invited, but due to distance or other plans, they declined our invitation to cram around a too-small table in our tiny kitchen/dining room.

That left my family of three, my parents and my sister-in-law and family. Six adults, two teenagers away from their friends, and a nine year old who only wanted to play games on the computer or watch The Justice League.

Until Wednesday when my brother-in-law called to say that his plans had changed was it still possible for he and his partner to come to our dinner.

I wanted to say "Fuck No!" and laugh an evil, demented laugh. But my evil, demented laugh sounds a lot like my normal demented laugh so he probably wouldn't have noticed the difference.

So instead I said, "Absolutely you can still come to dinner!"

We already had nine people and are only able to seat six, so what's two more? And when shopping for turkey I was trying to go smaller but gave up the ghost when all of the turkeys on top in the freezer bin were 20 lbs and I couldn't move them to get to the turkeys on the bottom. Which were most likely also 20 lbs.

Don't judge me. I was tired and I still had a lot of shopping to do. And there were a lot of seniors blocking the aisles, chatting with their friends, and creating bottlenecks in the dairy section.

So anyway, where was I?

The in-laws from upstate arrived Wednesday afternoon. The bro-in-law is only a couple of hours away so he just came for the day. Cooking was underway, snacks were being consumed, the wine was flowing. Sort of. I didn't dare have a glass of wine until all the food was on the table. Which I not only managed ahead of schedule, but everything was hot. Num, num, num. And while I had cooked, three of the guys put their heads together and managed to come up with a table arrangement which enabled everyone to sit in the same room.

It took three or four of them to figure it out, but one has to give them credit.

My happiest moment came when the in-laws took over in the washing up department, which is usually my job. Which I had been doing all day in addition to the cooking. So I gladly relinquished the yellow latex gloves.

And all was going well, until... (duh, duh, duh)... the well went dry and the water pump seized and gasped its last.

And there we were. Eleven people in our tiny house and no running water. No more somebody else washing dishes. No more rinsing of glasses. (Do you have ANY idea how much glassware teenagers go through?) And no more flushing of toilets. *GASP*

Thankfully our neighbors were home and good for a few buckets of toilet flushing water.

Black Friday was indeed "black" for the company who fixed our pump. I would call it Red Friday for us. And the water flows freely once again.

But Thanksgiving night I learned the true meaning of thankful. I am eternally thankful for a constant supply of running water. And I am especially thankful for a family with a sense of humor.

And I'm grateful beyond belief for a hot shower.