Tulane Chris' "Home for Thanksgiving" Drinking Game

[Editor's Note: I'd just like it to be known that I briefly considered posting the last scene of American History X today before Chris' drinking game to, you know, keep Monday and Tuesday's spice going. And to be an asshole. Mostly to be an asshole. But I decided not to! So I guess what I'm trying to say is, I'm thankful for me, too. Proceed, Chris.]

Drink: 

- for every fifteen pounds your high school friends gained, on the aggregate 

- every time the conversation between relatives lags, and is then punctuated by a loud upbeat sigh: “Yeah, the… Chargers… playoff. AAAAaaaah.”

- every time someone ritually pretends to consider refusing more food

- when something’s Not Right, as in “Did you put rosemary in the dressing? I know this is hard for you to understand, because of your learning disability – what’s it called again? Alcoholism? – but in this country…”

- something is Not Right to the max, as in last Thanksgiving when Giant Camel and Ex-Co-Blogger Eddie put the whole berry and the jellied cranberry sauce together in the saucepan and melted it, then looked at me like I was from space when I told them they were a bunch of drugged out Communists and ran to the store so I could have cold tubular jellied cranberry sauce like a human being from America

- something fails disastrously, as in three Thanksgivings ago when my mother and I tried to make organic zesty cranberry-sage weight-smart relish that we found in Prevention magazine (yes) and ultimately had to order pizza

- if there’s a festive centerpiece. Drink twice if it incorporates a cornucopia. Drink thrice if someone puts it on his head in an attempt to be wacky.

- at that awkward moment when half the family starts to tuck in and someone has to start the blessing at a shout to be heard over the crunch of gristle and the sloonk of cranberry sauce

- if you have to set aside a “special” dish for someone with a dietary restriction

- if they bitch anyway

- when your teenage cousin in his idealistic phase tries to get a discussion going about actual native-colonist relations

- for every muffled “Oh, God,” the above provokes

- if the Thanksgiving Piñata makes an appearance

- when you have to go around the table and say what you’re thankful for

- when someone says something WILDLY inappropriate during the previous, as when we did it in my freshman Intro to Theatre Arts class in high school and one kid was “thankful for his multiple personalities.” (He was totally my lab partner in chemistry and we got In Trouble because he lost our strip of magnesium we needed for an experiment.)

- if someone at work asks you “if Jews celebrate Thanksgiving.” Twice if you’re not Jewish. Three times if you have the presence of mind to pretend to be Jewish, make up a holiday, and take the rest of the day off.

- While making a hand turkey

- BECAUSE IT’S TULANE CHRIS’S 23RD BIRTHDAY AGAIN

- Because the Saints will have an easy win over the Cowboys, which they badly need, and I have $25 on them

- When you have this conversation:

“How’s work?”

“Well, I got fired from the ____ and now I sell ____ at intersections.”

“Oh. I guess you meet a lot of interesting people?”

“No, mostly teenagers throwing Mountain Dew cans at my head and people trying to pay me in Chick tracts.”

“Well, are you seeing anybody?”

“Sigurd went back to Iceland. He said he’d rather die of sealpox than spend another fifteen minutes watching my central nervous system lose the fight against a diet of Pop-tarts and Taaka. I think he stole my iPod.”

“…pets?”

“Ate each other.” 

This year, I’m thankful for our readers, especially those of you email me greyhound racing tips and graphic pornography. And as for the man who sends me graphic racing tips and greyhound pornography – I’m grateful for you too, but in a different way.