The day before Thanksgiving, at my old job, we had a small party. My boss decided to hold a round robin, asking everyone to share their plans for the holiday. My fellow employees generally reported that they were heading to their relatives’ homes or holding dinner at their own, traveling, or what have you.
Then she got to me. Feeling puckish I said, “Ah, I’ll spend it the same way I always do. Sitting in my dark apartment with a bottle of Wild Turkey.” I almost added, “and a revolver,” but I held back.
Most of my workmates laughed, but my boss had an irony deficiency. A look of total sympathy came over her face, and she asked, slowly, “Ohhhhhh… Would you like… to come over… to my family’s house for Thanksgiving, Dan?”
“You know… I was joking, right, J____?” I asked. I thought the laughter would have been a tip off. “I have a family, and I’m going to my folks’ house in the southwest burbs.”
“Oh… Ha ha!” she replied.
Sheesh, I thought.
Ordinarily, I would have felt some twinge of what you hoo-mans call “guilt.” Not with her. She generally sided with the designers because I always “picked on” them by demanding they correct typos and not make errors.
Errors such as the calendar where the designer determined that Thanksgiving took place on the third Wednesday of November. She was so convinced of this she left it in even after I noted that, no, it was the fourth Thursday. Then the calendar was printed, along with a few other brain-dead errors, such as the week in which the days were numbered “…18, 19, 21, 20, 22…” I was called into the big boss’ office, who asked me, not happily, how I could let something like that get through. I didn’t, I answered, and I showed her the original proof. The designer got less of a rollicking than I did. I really didn’t like working there at the end. I don’t think they liked me working there either, because they let me go with the next round of layoffs.
On the other hand, every year we got a free turkey. Happy Thanksgiving!
