123 Yo Mama Lane

What I Learned From an Early Thanksgiving Dinner:

1. If your aunt Valerie starts smoking a joint in the front seat on the drive home from dinner at your grandmother's house, gulping all the air in the car will not really do anything to the contents of your brain at all. You will just feel silly for making yourself breathe harder than a flounder in an old bucket for so long, and whatever Ke$ha song happens to be playing on the radio will still sound entirely uninspiring.

2. Eleven year olds DO know how to spell "douche bag," so don't even ask them to prove their abilities to you.

3. Sitting at a table full of grown ups will not make you like turkey, cranberry sauce, peas, corn, stuffing, gravy, candied yams, or mashed potatoes any more than you did before. Especially not mashed potatoes. Please just never even try to eat mashed potatoes no matter where you are or who you are with. They are just no good.*

5. If you are like me and realize you still do not like thanksgiving food even as an adult, planning an elaborate scheme to take your tray into the kitchen, throw it away, and swap it out with a new tray -- a tray with better food on it -- will not work.

Your aunt will ask, "what happened to my candied yams, tracie?," and you won't have a clue what to say, and then your whole family will notice your tray has changed, and everything is questioned.

You will ultimately get in trouble for throwing your food away instead of saving it for the old strays back at home on the front porch. After all, every real adult understands the importance of saving candied yams for hungry dogs.

4. The best way to play basketball while wearing pantyhose -- the only way, in my opinion -- is sitting in front of a computer, using the space bar to shoot. Any other way simply does not work.

5. Do not accidentally search for something in google images when you mean to search google maps. Today my dad and two nephews decided to look for their homes on the map section, and Justin, my little nephew, asked my older nephew what their address was. Ashton, being the thug he is, said "123 Yo Mama lane." Of course my little nephew actually googled that, with the safe search off and everything, and he did not see very pleasant images.

I was sitting at the kitchen table - the adult table - when I heard my nephews slam the screen of their computer down as quickly as possible, while my dad awkwardly laughed and said "that is not the yo mama lane you were looking for." And it certainly wasn't.

6. Everything.... everything is worth it for the cake.

*Here is what I don't understand about mashed potatoes, if you were curious: I like spaghetti, pears, macaroni salad, roast beef sandwiches, and cake. I also like potatoes. However, I would not like mashed spaghetti, pears, macaroni salad, roast beef sandwiches, or cake. What makes potatoes so special? Absolutely nothing.