Thanksgiving comes but once a year ...

Thanksgiving comes but once a year ...




...but your Aunt Audrey's little digs last months afterward.Your aunt Audrey is always the first to arrive on Thanksgiving day and the last to leave. She spends most of time judging others. She's judging you right now. She peppers her comments with little needles, and saves the heavy ammunition for dessert time. Did you make turkey soap, she asks? No, you mother says, but it'll thicken up in a minute when it heats up.Audrey arrives with a frozen pie, your Uncle Harold, and you two cousins Howard and Elise. Your favorite Aunt, your mother's youngest sister Adele is the mother of your favorite cousins, but they show up just before the meal hits the table.Audrey is always the first to ask your mother is she needs help (you mother always says no, because, well, thats your mom), and the last person to help with the clean up. Audry is just tits about collecting the linen napkins and tossing them down the chute. Thats the extent of her helpfulness.

As a teenager, Audrey was the first to bring up your acne ("Looking at you I start craving a peperoni pizza) and then she wants you to go pop the zit on your forehead because it looks like a third eye. "Stop the bleeding with some Clearasil!"

Now that you are all grown up, she asks, how's your job. You tell her. In a hushed voice she says "You sound like your mother," and "sure its a job, but is it a career?" and the hurtful dig "your mother can't sleep because she knows you just get by. Stop thinking about yourself, do the right thing for once."

To your sister its about her boyfriend. "SO I was talking with your date and he tells me he's Korean. I am assuming he's from the right side of the border?" Your sister attempts to protest, but Audrey overrides her by saying "Look, if you are going to have a baby, just make sure that he can't take it back with him, that's all I'm saying."

To your father its "So Harold, when are you going to move up to our neighborhood? Adele deserves the best, you know what I mean."

To your grandmother it's "Ma, just let it go. If she wanted the plastic off the furniture she would have taken it off herself."

To your grandfather its "Dad I don't want to hear about it. Now don't ruin a nice day like this."

And this is why Thanksgiving can become such a monumental drag.