Most of our readers know that I love satire, but probably not too many realize I am also, at times, a little bit sadistic and can also be a little bit of a freeloader.
With Thanksgiving and the holidays around the corner, I have decided to repent, come clean and hopefully receive forgiveness.
So here it goes:
My favorite Thanksgiving-eve routine is to, first, go to my bank, exchange a $20 bill into two tens and while there treat myself to a free cup of coffee.
Following that and while it is still before 11 AM, I make my way to my favorite supermarket (In Texas it is of course HEB) and treat myself to another delicious and free cup of coffee.
The timing is important because at exactly 11 AM the big coffee urn is taken away into the adjacent restaurant where one then – Oh, the horror! — has to pay for the coffee.
I have been known, however, when running five or ten minutes late, to – with a very disconsolate look on my face — walk into the restaurant and appeal to the attendant’s compassion and goodwill and still get my free cup of coffee. Most of the times it works.
Of course, on the day before Thanksgiving, “my HEB” has all kinds of holiday delicacies to feast on: The store is replete with nice ladies offering all kinds of free samples of such Texas treats as pecan pie, cherry pie, etc., etc. They go so well with my free cup of coffee.
While enjoying the treats – without any remorse or embarrassment – it’s interesting to watch the forlorn looks on many last-minute shoppers not finding the ingredients they so desperately need to make their Thanksgiving dinner a success.
If I could regress, however, even more “rewarding” are the looks of sheer desperation on the faces of so many last-last-minute Christmas-eve shoppers searching in anguish for gifts for a dozen or more friends and relatives.
But back to Thanksgiving. Perhaps the most interesting phenomenon the day before Thanksgiving takes place at the frozen turkey isle.
It usually involves – but not always – a young man or woman getting ready for his or her first home-cooked Thanksgiving dinner.
It is beguiling to see him or her pick out one of the larger frozen turkeys, say 20 to 30 pounds, and in blissful unawareness toss it into the shopping cart, oblivious to the thawing guidelines on the tag which clearly state that it can take four to six days to defrost one of those monsters.
But perhaps with the miracles of microwaves and blow driers that process can be expedited. Let’s hope so.
Anyway, that is my confession and I stand by it in a satirical way, hoping readers will understand (and forgive), but most of all wishing all a wonderful thawed-turkey Thanksgiving.
Moreover, with this I promise to shut-up and behave for the rest of the year Thanksgiving holiday.
The author is a retired U.S. Air Force officer and a writer.