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The Thanksgiving That Didn't Suck
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11/28/2006
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This year The Skirt and I and our friends Zoltar and Shortcake decided to abandon our families and go to the beach for Thanksgiving. Although we all get along with our families, we were surprised at how relaxing it was to hang out with the distinct lack of family obligations.
Since none of us have kids, we spent the time from Wednesday to Sunday pretty much eating, drinking and sleeping. I think it was Friday night that three of the four of us were asleep on the couch by 8:36 pm. Yeah, we're lightweights, so suck it. You know you would have fallen asleep that early too if you didn't have Aunt Eunice cackling in your ear and a bunch of rugrats screeching for no good reason.
Not a single one of us had ever cooked a turkey, but we ended up doing a surprisingly good job of it. In fact, the whole dinner was great, and only partly because we were all drunk and sitting outside on a balcony overlooking the water in 72 degree weather. And because Shortcake and The Skirt did all of the hard stuff.
Out of Frame: Shortcake messes with timer function on camera
At one point they tried to teach me a card game called yuker and I don't know or care if that is the right spelling. Imagine someone coming up to you and saying "let's play Chinese Calculus in Braille" and everyone being all excited about it and dealing you in. That's how I feel when someone busts out a deck of cards. I have successfully flown a twin engine aircraft to the correct runway using only the instruments on the panel and landed it in the dark, but cards baffle me. I've never been able to play card games other than the simplest ones, and yuker is not simple.
Here's a breakdown of what I remember of the rules-
Everybody gets five cards, but I didn't see any cards below a 9, and one of them is called a Jack Bauer and it doesn't even go around fighting terror. Diamonds trump something, but sometimes a diamond is a heart, even when you hold it up and angrily point to the diamond shape on the card. You start by flipping over a card and then everybody goes around the table and says "pass" or another word, and then you have to pick up a card or put one down and then everything is a blur until someone says they won.
Zoltar had the severe misfortune of being my partner, and he was peppered with idiotic questions. He gave answers like "You want to throw off-suit low on this hand" which sounded a lot like "You cookie fish racecar niner hand" for all the sense it made. In dealing with financing for the new house, I have been having an increasing number of these types of conversations, so fuck libor indices, yuker and the confusing horses they rode in on.
Basically every time it was my turn I put a card on the table. I then either got a high five, or the girls laughed and Zoltar buried his face in his hands. So that part was fun like reaching into a bag of tarantulas and chocolate and having to eat whatever you grabbed.
I guess our team won, but I was as instrumental in that victory as my cat is in the future of aerospace engineering, so we'll call it a win for Zoltar.
In the heat of battle. It looks like a beer bottle is sticking out of my nose.
That night we went into the "village" part of this delightful little planned beach community for dinner and 876,000 reminders of exactly why we are childless. Sandestin Village is the kind of collection of shops and restaurants that would cause a heterosexual man to use words like "quaint" and "charming" to describe it. I don't know if it was just because it was a holiday weekend, but I have never seen so many damn kids running around, nor have I ever seen so many adults doing things they really didn't want to do; wiping snot off of chins, waiting two hours in line to see a jolly old elf in whom they don't believe, or picking up a half dozen ketchup-soaked chicken nuggets off the floor while consoling a child who went completely insane because she got the wrong color straw.
We walked cautiously around, huddled together with our arms interlocked (kids will try to separate you from the herd and then they'll swarm on you and cover you with germs) and we had very specific instructions to try to make it back to the car if we should become separated. There we would wait for thirty minutes, after which we would presume the others dead. We made a pact to come back for the bodies the next day if any of us survived.
The first few restaurants we went into were like walking into the engine room of a World War 2 battleship under full steam. A generally hostile and dangerous environment, and an assault on senses you didn't even know you had. Mercifully, we soon discovered the oasis that is the 21 and up bar called Skipjack's Groghouse or some equally adorable name.
Quote me on this one- The over 21 establishment is the best thing to happen to kids since the choking hazard.
We were able to have dinner like grown ups and watch the South Dakota Marmots kick the crap out of the Nepal State Molesters in the latest football match. Luckily we found an escape hatch that led us safely back to the car, so you can thank Skipjack for keeping me alive long enough to bring you this tale of thanksgiving, cards, and terror. I only hope your holiday was as rad.
 Dusty
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posted by Dusty at 12:34 PM |
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23 Comments:
Umm...I didn't mean it THAT way
dunderfunk.
I enjoy playing cards, but never get good cards, even when I'm partnered up, but luckily when I have a partner, we play pretty well together.
Anyway, I'm still waiting for the '06 Top Ten list...
*taps foot*......
Should she be, then I figure that when she's not looking, he'll do like all good neanderthal males do, and club her over the head and take her back to his cave, where she'll pick the bugs out of his hair for him. j/k on that last part there Dusty, :P.
TLee007
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