Writing Resources from Fifteen Minutes of Fiction

Buffett Style

I'm waiting my turn. We are actually standing in line, my whole family that is. It snakes around the small kitchen area of my aunt's newly renovated ranch style home. We spread the feast out alla "Country Buffet" before us on a couple of old wooden folding tables that have been banished to the garage for the last eleven months since last New Year's Eve. They are camouflaged with tablecloths that sport a pompous looking turkey with its chest out who clearly has never heard of this particular holiday.

The tables are just as much honored guests at Thanksgiving as anyone of us humans are, and much more useful, to say the least. The majority of my brethren haven't so much as lifted a finger to make this abundance come to fruition…except to press the front door bell.

Most of us merely showed up to this bounty magically spilling forth for all to partake, giving little or no thought to how difficult it must have been to prepare such an array of fortifying, robust culinary treasures.

It is in this moment that I feel very "thankless" and I am ashamed, my stomach growling in protest, begging for this sudden attack of guilt to pass as I finally reach the mashed potatoes. It is in this moment that I look around and watch my uncles, and cousins doing all they can to contain themselves with little success, clumsily shuffling along the seemingly endless queue of food. Their faces are all glazed over in ecstatic hunger and anticipation, their thoughts primal and singular.

And it is in this moment that I then realize - and not a moment too soon - that now is not the time for such ideology, or remorse. What good is it to feel badly for all that my aunts have labored over while I lazily watched Jane Pauley and Bryant Gumbel ramble on about the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade, still adorning my pjs, careful not to burn my lips on my cup of hot cocoa while thousands of people froze near Central Park?

Now was the time to eat, to fill up on the goodness of others as well as on the goodness of the food. To enjoy the utter gluttony of a day whose main purpose is to be a vehicle by which we can all be thankful for all we have and for all we have done for us. To do otherwise would take all my relatives' efforts and intentions in vain, their simple, yet profound intentions to feed their family and produce yet another classic and comforting holiday.

As I piled all the Thanksgiving Day fixings on my paper plate decorated with that same majestic clip art-type depiction of the noble bird as was on the matching tablecloth, I came to terms with my guilt and was quite thankful for that as much as for anything else...including our guests of honor...the wooden tables.

time: 57 minutes

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