"I'm going away just to wear you off my mind"

The long hours are getting to everyone. The quiet guy sitting to my right has transformed into a hilarious, obnoxious mess. He's bitching about the South. He's demanding the right to go home early. I saw him packing things up at ten and I yelled over, "Hey, cheater, we're here until four." "You're here until four," he hollered back. "What you call 'cheating,' I call 'Getting the hell out of Dodge.'" Ah, citizens of Earth, if only he'd been so amusing yesterday or the day before, I might not have been wishing for a gun. But, I was thinking, if I had had a gun yesterday, I could have shot myself in the foot--thus getting me out of the hotel AND forcing the recalcitrant brother to come into the city to visit me in the hospital. But, you know, what the fuck? Instead of being bitter, I'm just going to sit down with the whole family at Thanksgiving and suggest that we have our family motto be: "The [our last names]: Total strangers will do better by us than we will." Then, I can get that tattooed on me some place where I can refer to it often, until I know it in my heart, and then I'll stop being so fucking hurt by their bullshit. Whew. That spot's tender. Let's go back to the people watching. The two girls to my left tend to answer in unison when they're unsure which one of them is being spoken to. The guy across from them is delightfully laid-back which, I think, has had a calming effect on everyone. The two girls across from me are cute as hell, but very no nonsense. What's the use in being cute as hell if you aren't any fun?* The woman directly to my right has been a riot this whole time. I'll be sitting quietly and she'll just lean over and say something like, "You're left handed?" "Yes." "Oh, my god. How gross!" Which is maybe not so funny in print, but I thought I was going to fall out of my chair. My dad just called to talk about Thanksgiving. I did not spring the motto-creation plan on him. Instead I had the pleasure of explaining to him yet again that I'm not doing Thanksgiving this year because, god damn it, the Butcher is a grown ass man who works at a store and owns a meat thermometer and I am not the fucking family social director. And so he should discuss meal planning with the Butcher. "Well, that's what your brother said, but I couldn't believe it." You know, you'd think a family so dependent on women for its well-being would be a little nicer to us. You'd also think that once I realized that I constantly take care of them in ways I wish they'd take care of me and once I realized that all that's done is lead them to expect that I will always take care of things, that I would stop taking care of things. But come on! I think we both know who, if any turkey has actually been procured, will be putting that fucker in the oven on Thursday. I can't decide if the trick is to stop taking care of people or just to find better people to take care of. Anyway, it's stupid to let them annoy me so much. Soon enough, I'll be done here and I'll have no obligations to anyone until Monday morning. I'm probably going to stop by the recalcitrant brother's house for lunch and I'll probably stop by Walmart to get some yarn for my next project. But none of these probablies are firm. And I'm buoyed by the knowledge that I will soon enough get into my car, slip out of town, and drive out of reach of everyone, at least for a little bit. *As Josh White reminds us, "Takes a nice teasing mama just to pacify my soul."