The worst Thanksgiving dish

I've been using a book by the San Francisco Writers Grotto to spur my writing. This is one of the many exercises.

“Can you believe it?” she asked.

“I know! Really? Who makes that for Thanksgiving?” he questioned, though under his breathe as not to offend.

“Well, they would.”

“True.” They say a moment looking at the small portions of the dish they had served themselves. It was hard not to with the hosts asking everyone what they thought about it. They made such a point of it; some of the guests did not eat it out of protest. “Why did we come here and not your parents?” he asked breaking the silence.

“Remember, we had to do that thing yesterday at that place with those people.”

“Yeah, that thing,” he sarcastically said, adding exasperatedly, “because even the people there would remember it from that description. Why do you always have to do that? I can’t read your mind.”

“Well, maybe you should try,” she interrupted with an equally exasperated and emphatic whisper.

“And how do I get super powers like? Maybe if I eat this crap?”

They both chuckled a little, but not enough for the other guests to turn around. Ah, the joys of being the last son. Your parents are too old to invite people who have children, and even if they did their children’s children were in high school some entering college. So, there they were the college couple sitting alone at the kid’s table. His brother was with his in-laws, and her family was celebrating with more traditional and deliciously fattening fare at their homestead.

And there it sat, the offending dish, the most non-traditional, overly healthy Thanksgiving accessory. If you saw you would never think of Thanksgiving. Well, truth be told if you walked in the house the only hint of thanksgiving would be the under-sweetened sweet potatoes, the dried out turkey, the health-nut’s version of stuffing, and nasty canned cranberry sauce that not even the most American of American’s would touch as to not offend his hosts. There was no-TV in the background preparing you for a day of football, no screaming children running around, no old men hunkered outside watching the turkey fry and sipping whiskey or beer, no salad-prepping women in the kitchen cackling over the stupid things men do, no marshmallows in the sweet potatoes, no apple or pecan pies, no vat of ice cream to top those off, no pumpkin pies covered in whipped cream, there was barely a trace that this was Thanksgiving at all. You might as well have been in Canada.

“I mean really did they think that was a good idea?” he asked her in the car.

“They’re your parents you know better than I do…”

“…that they weren’t thinking,” he interrupted. “I’m sorry, next year we’re totally going to your parents. As long as we don’t have a thing with some people at some place.” He smiled coyly at her and then had to swerve to miss her punch. “Hey, don’t distract the driver!”

They laughed all the way home.