Nov 282017
 

Thanksgiving used to be a day that gave me so much stress. Where will we go!? Who will invite us over?! How can we be normal Americans?! But once you realize that other peoples’ traditions don’t have to be your traditions, things get a lot easier. Henry and I were just happy to be home from work, and Chooch was stoked to be home from school because the workload of sixth grade has been kicking his ass. We relaxed. Chooch hung out with his friends. (“Where did Chooch go with the gas mask on?” Henry asked when he saw Chooch leave the house, face obstructed by the bulky black mask. Apparently he was playing baseball in Marky’s backyard.) I watched kpop videos (OK MOSTLY TAEMIN VIDEOS). Henry cooked a casual dinner of sweet potatoes, mashed potatoes, Brussels sprouts, butternut squash, some kind of fake ham roast (HE DIDN’T BUY THE TOFURKY IN TIME, YOU GUYS), and a wonderful homemade sweet potato pie.

It was a great dinner but I was mad because I had these lofty dreams of eating dinner inside a pillow fort but Henry wouldn’t help us build one and I got frustrated and tore the whole thing down and yelled at Henry for not buying a play tent the other night like I asked him to!!!! THIS COULD HAVE BEEN OUR NEW TRADISHUNNNNNNN.

While we ate, we watched birthday party videos on YouTube, which is what we started doing by accident two years ago on T-Day. In fact, the day before at work, my co-worker Marlene asked me what I was going to do for Thanksgiving. After I told her about the birthday party videos, she looked at me intently and them asked, “…but, you’re going to eat something too, right?”

At the end of our convo, she walked away and said, “Um, Happy…YouTubing.”

I mean, she asked!

Anyway, immediately after queueing up the first video, I felt full of rage. All of these famous-for-nothing YouTubers live in the same type of house: an under-furnished white/beige McMansion with literally no personal effects. I DON’T UNDERSTAND. We watched one with these two young sisters, and the one was having a surprise half-birthday party for the other, and it was so scripted and fake and BORING AS FUCK, AND THEY HAVE 8 MILLION SUBSCRIBERS.

Life is so unfair.

Henry, about one of these lame YouTube families: “THEY HAVE THEIR OWN GOOGLE APP.” He usually doesn’t get involved in our bday party YouTubing & he was instantly filled with regret.

We watched another where this basic ass white family had a birthday party at the roller rink for their bitchy teenage daughter and all of her Mean Girl friends. A few minutes in, I yelled, “WAIT WAIT WAIT….did they rent the whole rink out for this bitch’s birthday party?!” and as I said that I remembered that I too rented out a rink….twice.

BUT I DON’T HAVE 4 MILLION YOUTUBE SUBSCRIBERS.

After about an hour of this, I was tapped out and had to go back to kpop videos.

The next day, Thanksgiving Day #2, Henry had to work so Chooch and I hung out with Janna.

We had lunch at Spice Island and Chooch actually ate. He made this huge production of tasting each vegetable—normal ones, like cauliflower and green beans—like he was an alien visiting earth for the first time. He also had a pot of jasmine green tea and was so fucking dramatic about drinking it that I started to beg him to start a food vlog so that he can get a million followers and then we too can live in an echo-y McMansion which I will quickly turn into a virtual funhouse.

Afterward, we were going to walk around Schenley Park but since we were so close to CMU, we decided to explore the campus because Chooch is obsessed with one day going to college there. He has it all planned out.

Chooch was so afraid that we were going to get in trouble for being in there yet he gives no shits about trampling around the Pitt campus.

The last time I was at CMU was in 11th grade for my friend Evan’s art show. I remember him accidentally taking a door handle off one of the doors in whatever building we were in and giving it to me. I was SO EXCITED because I had a huge crush on Evan and here he was giving me a doorknob.

I’m not sure if I still have that doorknob, but I definitely have a video of this scene because I used to take my camcorder with me everywhere back then.

(As I’m writing this, Chooch came back in the house with the gas mask in his hand. “I just like wearing it,” he said.)

Chooch and his new dad. This was right before he ran across the grass because he wanted to pet some dog but then the dog’s owner crossed the street before Chooch could get there in time. It was a beautiful failure and Janna and I had a grand time mocking him.

Honestly, all Chooch cares about these days is petting dogs. It puts me in precarious situations because then I feel obligated to also talk to the dog owner and I just hate it so much. I hate talking to people, ugh.

We took a short break from competing/arguing/swearing at each other to take some selfies. I asked Janna if she ever feels like she’s our chaperone and she slowly said no but SHE HESITATED.

This is some famous CMU paint-thing. There were paint cans and brushes laying about so Chooch and I took that as our invitation to add our own flair.

And then Janna had enough of us and took us home, where we became Henry’s problem.

Say it don't spray it.

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