Thanksgiving on the sitcoms is disastrous

I have seldom seen a Thanksgiving Dinner on a situation comedy or drama that went well. Most movies also follow the hackneyed, trite, clichés making the day and meal a catastrophe. Everything that can go wrong does. The people are inept, rude, crude, brash and everything but thankful. Only one person is sane; the woman at whose house the event is held.

The turkey is never edible. The chef never begins in a timely fashion so it is raw or it is overcooked and black as a lump of coal and about as tasty. Sometimes it does turn out alright, but the family dog eats and mangles it.

All of the cousins and small children are bratty and rude. They run, yell, break lamps, spill drinks on the carpet and occupy all the chairs making the old people stand up.

Then there is DeNiece who attends college at Clay Bank, an exclusive girl's school in Bushrod, Ind., and a vegan. She only eats watercress on crackers made of brown rice flour from Bangladesh and drinks Pluto water from the spring in West Baden and weighs 89 pounds. She is as pale as a sheet bleached with 10 times normal bleach and left to sun dry in Arizona for six weeks. She does eat asparagus whip for dessert.

Then there is the lecherous boozy Uncle Crood and his long suffering wife Prunella. He is loud, brash and a know-it-all. He corrects everyone and buts in on every conversation with his opinion about all topics. He went to the Cliff Claven School of Propriety. He believes all of the women have the hots for him so he gives unwanted hugs and leers at them.

Some of the college age and young married people arrive fashionably late, eat as if they had not eaten in a week then duck out to attend other functions where the people are somewhere else, doing something else, with someone else who is more interesting, more exciting, more important, more fun than the boobs at the family dinner.

As soon as the meal is over, the men gather to belch, burp, scratch and snore while watching the marathon of football games. They look right through those who want to play games with the family. They also yell for the women to hold down the laughing and socializing as it interferes with the sound of the game.

Aunt Grouch, Uncle Crabby and Granny Cobb attempt to control who is invited. They threaten that they will not attend if Millie and Fred will be there. They can't forget that 26 years ago Millie and Fred did not give a high school graduation present to their daughter Brucella. She was the valedictorian, yearbook editor, captain of the volleyball team, president of student council, head cheerleader, had the lead in the drama productions each year, played first chair in the oboe section of the orchestra, chosen most likely to succeed - she was home schooled. She won a scholarship to the university of Nepal and majored in goat cheese curds.

My family is not this way thankfully. Happy Thanksgiving.

My website Larryvandeventer.com - Read about me, my books, and my columns. Larry Vandeventer grew up North of Calvertville on a farm and graduated from Worthington High School and Indiana State U. He can be reached at Goosecrick@aol.com or 317-839-7656.