This Thanksgiving we were all reminded of days gone by…..and it turned from what to be thankful for, to who has ever had the worst Thanksgiving. Which is kinda of funny since, isn’t that the day we are supposed to look back and be….well…thankful?
So after a few “can you top this crappy Thanksgiving stories“, we all remembered with reverence and a few tears that this is Aunt J’s holiday to spend with us. Now if you remember, Aunt J couldn’t hear a lick, and because of macular degeneration, couldn’t see all that well either. In days gone by, Aunt J and my mother-in-law would be here for a day or two before Thanksgiving and be right in there helping with all the food prep and getting the house in order. Aunt J decided that her job would be chopping vegetables. Someone(probably me) got out the glass cutting board, because it’s big and two people could use it at one time. And the chopping began, onions, celery, parsley, potatoes. Ten pounds of potatoes requires a lot of peeling and chopping, as does the accompanying onions, celery and parsley to make three or four casseroles of Pennsylvania Dutch potato stuffing.
What none of us realized is that when one can’t see or hear very well, AND when one is hell-bent-for-election to get ten pounds of potatoes with all the accoutrements done in a timely manner….well, one Aunt J to be specific, turned that glass cutting board into a jackhammer. All of us in the kitchen, and there were close to 10 people in there slaving away, were standing there with eyes as wide as saucers looking at one another with alarm and an internal cry for help.
My mother-in-law went first:
“J, you’re doing that too hard, you’re gonna’ break the cutting board,” she said.
Aunt J just kept chop, chop, chopping away, in kind of a maniacal look if you want to know the truth.
Next up: my mom, in the loudest voice she could muster:
“J?…………….J?………………J!!!”
Miraculously, J looks up from her mission to crush, kill, destroy.
My mom takes her hand out of the pot she is stirring, and makes a gesture to slow down, kind of like they do when you’re driving through a construction area on a highway and they want everyone to SLOW THE HELL DOWN!
Aunt J shakes her head in the affirmative and ever so SLOWLY chops an onion in half, then in quarters, then starts to dice, and well, just can’t help herself. Apparently dicing is a gateway to methamphetamines and other dangerous things.
Finally, I take all her toys away and just before she can shed a tear that’s not related to onion chopping, I replace the glass cutting board with a super heavy duty plastic one. The muffler of all cutting boards, even though we never knew we needed such a thing. Everyone grabbed their requisite wine glass that accompanies Thanksgiving day food prep (what? that’s not a thing????) and let the little chopping elf continue her important work.
That was years ago…. haven’t gotten that glass cutting board out since.
You just have to laugh……
Cathy Sikorski