Turkey (Pot Pie) Day 2009

Picture this: Thanksgiving Day, 6:30pm, and me, standing in the frozen dinner aisle at Walmart. In my basket - one turkey pot pie (for obvious reasons), one frozen dinner of swedish meatballs in pasta (I need dinner for tonight after all), one can of jellied cranberry sauce (this is my attempt to make my turkey pot pie a thanksgiving dinner for one), and a variety pack including fruit roll-ups, fruit by the foot, and gushers (this because I'm feeling sorry for myself being alone on Thanksgiving).

How did this happen?

Rewind the clock 24 hours. As you know, I went out the night before for the standard Thanksgiving Eve binge drinking. I, in fact, did a full bar crawl through Lexington, hitting both Maca-don'ts, and the Palms...yes, I hit all two bars. And although I stumbled (or my car stumbled...yes, think Gustav's.) in around 1:30am, I figured I would be able to rise before my 1:00pm Thanksgiving Dinner Reservations at the Natural Sink Hole. Yes, I did actually have plans other than sitting alone with my dog eating a Marie Calendar's frozen pot pie. When I finally came to, I lazed about a bit thinking it must be, 11:00, 11:30 at the latest. I finally rolled out of bed and went into the kitchen to discover to my shock and dismay it was 1:30pm. I had officially slept a full 12 hours and missed my Thanksgiving dinner (this reminds me of the time I slept through one of my first college finals - a 3:00pm final...and I had to tell the professor I slept in....another tale for another day!). I panicked and grabbed my phone, which of course had several calls and texts from the party I was supposed to dine with. When I frantically texted back, she simply said "No worries, we're finishing up here." This was at 1:30pm, the reservation was at 1:00pm. At this time, I'd like to point out two things - #1: Who the hell eats thanksgiving dinner at 1:00? I understand some people eat early..okay, 3:00, 4:00, but 1:00? That's called brunch. And #2: How does one possibly enjoy the glory of a thanksgiving buffet in 30 minutes?! I am still baffled by this thought. More on that in the coming Seafood Buffet post.

Needless to say, it was over, I had missed Thanksgiving. No point in rushing. So, as you can imagine, and I'm sure as you'd do, I got back into bed and proceeded to sleep until 6:00 when I decided to roll out and attempt to find myself some dinner. I figured at least grocery stores were open on Thanksgiving right? Wrong. I got to the store around the corner, and it had closed at 6:00pm...every fast food restaurant was closed, the whole town was dead...until I remembered the beacon of hope that is Walmart. Surely, Walmart cannot be closed. And indeed, its warm blaring blue sign was lit up as always, and there I found myself, in the frozen dinner aisle at Walmart on Thanksgiving.

And on that note, I never really though about this as I haven't known many people that don't celebrate the holidays, and usually, I am with family on holidays doing the usual ordeal and have no need to go out and about to Wendy's or Kroger's. But, doesn't it get really annoying that on, for all intensive purposes for you, random days of the year everything shuts down? As I found myself having somewhat of a "normal" day, I was kind of offended that everything was shut down and was driving around like "Are you kidding me?! What about the rest of us?" Rest of us being those that don't celebrate, but mainly in my mind, me, angry and bitter that I had drunkenly slept through my plans and found myself alone and hungry on this Thanksgiving Evening.

Here's to 2010.