Myles Standish, Captain of the
Mayflower, is the reason for holiday stress.
In August, he invited the Indians to a Labor Day
party, got them roaring drunk so they would tell him where the wild turkeys hung
out. Promising more firewater, he then conned them into teaching Pilgrim women
how to grow, harvest and cook maze, squash, pumpkins, and Boston Baked Beans.
By the middle of October, Myles
was thinking, PAR-TAY!
Picture,
if you will, Captain Standish reciting Julius Caesar aloud, mooning over
Priscilla Alden and watching football. (Pilgrims vs. Indians).
His wife, Barbara, is in the kitchen thinking about wringing
his neck instead of the
fifty-pound-turkey. Overwhelmed by twenty sacks of potatoes to mash and
pumpkins the size of wagon wheels, she’s not happy. The experimental spaghetti
squash exploded in July and her zukes grew to the size of Labrador Retrievers.
She has wheat to thrash and dough to rise and roll. The colossal turkey has
eighty-five pellets in its butt, thanks to Myles who introduced firewater and firepower to the Indians.
Preparing for the first
Thanksgiving feast, Barbara mutters to herself and quivers.
“Would it have killed him to
ask me before he invited every Indian in the new country? I’m supposed to entertain
strangers dressed in animal skins. Gimme a flippin’ break.”
Baby Lora is walking now; son
Charles is into teenage angst, and young Myles is a nerd. Big Myles mostly
muses.
“Husband,”
Barbara shouts. “Pu-leese stop musing and get in here.”
He
stomps into the dirt-floor kitchen. “Now what, Babs?”
“What are ya, blind? I’m knee-deep in
unshucked maze and pumpkins that need to be stewed. Baby Lora messed up her
last clean nappy while you were mooning over Priscilla. She married somebody
else, Myles. Get over it.”
The
zukes are growing faster than the speed of light and the sweet potato pies are
bubbling over in the oven.
Myles
poses like a Fifteenth Century Mr. Clean. “Blimey! It’s Disaster City in here. Other
than whining, what have you been doing, woman? Our guests are expected today. What
is so difficult about preparing enough food to feed a small continent? What
else would you rather be doing?”
She
looks around for something sharp. “I’m hormonal, Myles, so I would rather take
a nap and leave instructions for you to wake me up in 1776 in time for the
Fourth of July fireworks.”
“Are you daft, woman? What is
this nonsense you spout?”
She
sidles over to a knife resting under a sixty-pound zucchini. A vague smile
crosses Barbara’s lips as she and the knife focus on the bad-tempered, albeit
intrepid Mayflower Captain.
“Myles,”
Barbara croons, “Why did you invite the entire Wampanoag Nation to dinner?”
“There
you go exaggerating, Babs. Dr. Phil calls that non-productive behavior.”
“Do not,” Barbara snarls,
“repeat, do not speak to me about non-productive behavior. I push my tush while
you sit around and muse.”
He throws up his hands. “There
you go again.”
“What do you mean?” She tugs the
knife out from under the seriously heavy zucchini.
“Merely a reminder that the entire
nation was not invited. Only the families of Squanto, Samoset and Chief Yellow
Feather.”
Barbara hides the knife within
the folds of her grease-spattered skirt. “Husband, do I dare ask how many
family members the savages will bring with them?”
Myles lights up a cheroot and casually blows a smoke ring. “About ninety. What? Why the long face? Is entertaining a
few of my friends too much to ask? I have a colony to run, you know.”
“Ninety people? Ninety?
Are you are out of your freaking gourd? Who is going to look after your wild
offspring, do the laundry and cook the stinkin’ pumpkins? I’m no Martha
Stewart.”
“Babs, what we have here is a
failure to communicate. Now tell me, what would you rather do?”
“Seriously? I'd rather be pummeled to the ground with
a 20-pound sack of flour until I pass out, that’s what I'd rather do.”
“There’s no need to get your
bloomers in a bunch over a little dinner party. Chill. Call the Butterball Hot
Line. They know everything there is to know about turkey stress.”
Barbara stares at him. “Maybe they’ll
send us a wagontrain of cooked food with an army of servers.”
“Babs, Babs, Babs. The
Butterball Hot Line is designed to get you through turkey angst, not to spoil
you rotten.”
“Myles, this is a perfect time to
tell you that I have a raging case of PMS, a migraine and a sharp butcher knife. I am on my
last nerve and I don’t give a flying fig about the Butterball people.”
“Hey! Don’t go all nutterootie
on me.”
Barbara closes her eyes and
wraps her fingers around the hidden knife. In a low voice, she hisses. “Get out
of my kitchen, Myles!”
The intrepid Captain Standish
retreats like a cowardly lion from Barbara’s disarrayed domain and returns to his
sanctuary. A quirky grin sneaks onto his lips to slowly spread across his face
like warm cranberry sauce.
“Woo-Hoo. For a
minute there I was afraid the old lady would bail and then who would cook that
fifty-pound turkey? Certainly not me. I have a colony to run.”
