Bryan Joiner

The turkey legs were crispy and catalog-looking, and no one had touched them, probably out of respect. We were playing Cards Against Humanity, which is subtitled “A game for horrible people,” at which we laughed because we obviously thought we *weren’t* horrible people, because we were playing it. The Jets were stretching, preparing for an apocalypse. We hadn’t yet broken into the Oban, but it was close. My cousin has those big ice cubes that fancy bars have, and it made me want to buy the trays on Black Friday until I remembered it was Black Friday. That won’t stop my sister-in-law, who’s in town for the first time and wants to get her Kate Spade on. That she is the ex-wife of David Spade’s brother took a lot of us by surprise, though I thought I might have heard it before, somewhere, and wasted it like the leftovers headed for the food shredder, or killed it with booze.

The next morning, I woke up wanting more. Thanksgiving reminds us to fatten up for the upcoming winter, nevermind that portions of our country don’t really have one and some others are watching it wane like the relevance of the nightly news. We had two types of stuffing, and one was made with cornbread, bacon and kale per the law that anything made in Brooklyn contain requisite amounts of kale. It’s funny because it’s an uncommon vegetable.

“Are you writing about how great I am?” the girlfriend asks. I say yes, for reasons.

The cranberry sauce was a milky pink; I stayed away. This was my fault. I had, for days, delegated the sawce to my cousin, the host. Apparently the night before the event, I said that we were bringing it, and we were not bringing it, and he whipped up something in a flash. There were yams, or sweet potatoes, and I thought it was funny to grill my mom on which one it was, even if it probably wasn’t funny. Lest we die of hunger, there was a pre-cooked smoked turkey to pick at which the larger, equally dead bird roasted. The smoked turkeys, from Greenberg’s, were “the pride of Tyler, Texas,” said my cousin, the Texan, who supplied Lone Star beer. The caps for the beers have riddles, and I think I figured out most of mine. One involved “horse sense,” and involved a horse head and a “cents” sign. It was remedially easy, even for the boozy.

There were maple-roasted brussel sprouts that I chopped myself, don’t even worry about it. There were two small dogs who watched the meal in desperation, tucked into their makeshift pen. The Boston Terrier wore a sweater because my sister-in-law thought she was cold. On the way over, I was afraid the dog was going to scratch my nice dinner jacket, which I really had no business wearing, but I paid enough for it that it’s good to break out from time to time, especially for a mom that flew in from Alaska. It would have been nicer of me not to bark at her on the phone on the way over, but you live and learn.

Everyone was happy by the end of the night, which came earlier than expected because of the Jets’ incompetence, even the Cowboys fan, a chef extraordinaire who started the incomparable RGIII on his fantasy team. We got back to Brooklyn by 11 and my girlfriend and I resumed our practice of kicking each other in our sleep, keeping each other awake. My legs hurt, and I can’t figure out why. More family stuff is planned for today. By Sunday, I’ll be back at work. This is it: The last moment of the holidays, because Christmas is shite.

We’re gonna see “Lincoln” today.

Grade: A