**Note: This sketch is written by my friend, the hilarious Denise Boylan of Second City in Chicago. I spent Thanksgiving with her family, and it was awesome! We collaborated on this cornucopia of family comedic splendor. Enjoy.
Here’s the thing about my family. I love them. I love them a lot. But they are a crazy bunch, especially when all of us are gathered in one place. Take Thanksgiving for instance. My dad and grandmother take over the kitchen and don’t allow anyone else in. Like, you will get YELLED AT. While this does create ample drinking time before dinner, it keeps me from the olives. I am in serious like with all kinds of olives, but at Thanksgiving I run into an obstacle. Someone insists on putting the olives and the picked peaches in the same dish. WHY. Why would you do that?? So even though most of me enjoys being shunned from the kitchen, part of me is pissed because I am kept from my beautiful, untainted olives.
Anyway, my family is big on traditions. The biggest tradition that I simply DO NOT understand is that my brother, my cousins, and I all sit at the Kids’ Table. WE ARE WELL INTO OUR 20′S. We can drive, smoke, vote, drink, fight for our country, buy porn on our own, and some of us can even rent cars. How is it that we are still confined to this Kids’ Table? Granted we probably have more fun than they do at the Grown-Up Table, but still. It’s the principle of the matter.
The Grown-Up Table is like a mystic place that only exists in your wildest dreams. When we walk over there (usually for refills on biscuits), conversation either stops, or they burst into uproarious laughter. What is so funny?? Is it my good looks and charm? Is it my endless appetite? Or are they just laughing because WE ARE STILL AT THE KIDS’ TABLE? I couldn’t tell you what goes on there because it is something I have yet to experience. More accurately: it is something I have yet been given permission to experience.
The younger generation of cousins is now beginning to sit and eat on their own, so there’s a glimmer of hope for our graduation from the Kids’ Table soon. I’m sure once (if) we actually get clearance to join the Grown-Up Table, we will long for the card table and folding chairs of our youth (present), but until then I will remain indignant at the fact that I have my name engraved at the Kids’ Table.
Oh yeah, Happy Thanksgiving!
Written by, Denise Boylan
Illustrated by, Taylor Weller
Like this:
Like Loading...
