In my home, Thanksgiving can best be described as an exercise of hope. You hope there are no bad political takes, but there always are; you hope that nobody gets in a fight, but they always do; you hope that the mashed potatoes last long enough for you to get a second plate, but they never do.
"Thanksgiving always goes just a little bit wrong."
You always hope that it won’t, but reality rarely matches up with your hopes. You can always see it coming too. We always just manage to get our hands on of the last turkey at the store (or apparently on Earth… how early does everyone else buy turkeys??). The stress of going to three different stores and finding no turkey is hellish. I’m not entirely sure why we work so hard to find the dang thing since it’s always dry as sand by the time it’s done cooking. I don’t mean the powdery kind of beach sand either, the kind softened by the sea. I mean the brutal, Saharan kind. I’ve been to the Sahara... I know.
Who is the culprit of this? My old man. The weirdest part is: he’s a great cook. He can make stuff that you hate taste good. For instance, six-year-old me had a vendetta against broccoli. If broccoli was on the table, I wouldn’t eat a thing (I was a first-grader focused and committed to this broccoli hatred). After preparing a dish with the offending vegetable and begging me to give it just one more chance, I conceded, and my hatred was dispelled. I’ve got a dozen stories like that about my dad but Turkey just seems to be the mountain he can’t climb. We’re always a little disappointed every year when he doesn’t conquer his white whale, not because we’re missing out on turkey, but just because we’re rooting for him. There’s always hope for next year though.
~~ Mohammed Mansour, Class of '24
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