Thanksgiving in a box

"We are so lazy," Jesse said as we recently watched our parade of neat and tidy prepackaged hunk o' kettle fried turkey, the pre-sliced smoked ham, and the pumpkin cheesecake inch forward on the Costco conveyor belt. 

"Wrong!" I countered. "We are not lazy. We are busy." Or at least, that's what I told myself as the nondescript turkey was loaded into a box. "This is so much more convenient," I thought, "No need be up to my elbows in turkey innards, poking the pale, goose pimply skin and extracting stringy, purple giblets..." The stuff "gives me the shivers," as the main character says in A Prayer for Owen Meany. When we have a house without concrete slabs for a backyard and a table big enough to accommodate our ten kids, then I'll happily get up 24 hours in advance to stuff a turkey and begin the brining process, basting every half hour to achieve the golden perfection of the bird on the cover of the special Thanksgiving issue of Martha Stewart Living. And then, I might even make my own gravy, too, instead of following the instant packet's directions to "just add water!"

All these thoughts wandered through my mind as Jesse swiped the credit card in the checkout line. But later I thought more about it, and decided Jesse was right. We are lazy. We are so busy that laziness has become an inevitable consequence.

Lazy
–adjective
1. averse or disinclined to work, activity, or exertion; indolent.

Yeah, that's us. After a day of staring at a computer screen crunching data for project managers in Boston, then listening to lectures from 6 p.m.-10 p.m. at the U, then enduring the hour-long ride home on Trax trying (without an iPod) to drown out the surrounding conversations of cell phone junkies loudly publicizing epic tales of last night's sexual exploits, or their latest break-up, the last thing Jesse feels like doing is more work. 

My commuting is less thrilling. I drive 40+ miles to get to BYU. Then drive 40+ miles to get home. The end. After teaching 80 students and sitting in seminars listening to discussions of the vices of alcoholism in Victorian England, I feel like doing only one thing: taking a nap. I am disinclined to exert any mental effort whatsoever. This includes cooking. I don't remember the last time I cooked--not reheated a frozen pizza, or bought dinner at the nearest deli, or persuaded Jesse to take me to Cafe Rio. When we were even too lazy to do any of the above, I thought Jesse would get tired of eating cereal and root beer floats for dinner in mid October.

I suppose this is why I'm allowing us to "host" our first Thanksgiving "out of a box," courtesy of Costco. This, and the fact that I have to write about 100 pages before December 14th. I haven't started yet. Now might be a good time...

As usual, I'm missing the point of the whole holiday. It's easy to get caught up in the preparation of trying to get everything just right, even if it's precooked. All that really matters is that you're grateful. And there is so much to be grateful for.

P.S. Our fish died on October 8th. We were too lazy to have a funeral.