Thanksgiving Survival Guide: How to Break Even
by Spence Cooper on 09/11/09 at 7:01 am
Can this be considered child labor?
You spend days preparing a Thanksgiving feast for thirty-five relatives. Everyone’s seated at the three wobbly tables you lined up in the middle of the living room; the kids are squirming at the extra card tables. You’ve said a thoughtful Thanksgiving prayer and “poof” — everyone’s finished. Your Thanksgiving masterpiece, your culinary magnum opus is Gone in Sixty Seconds. All that’s left are mountains of dirty dishes.
Not this year. It ain’t gonna happen.
Like many Fortune Five Hundred companies, my wife and I are reducing our capital expenditures and cutting hours this year. We’re outsourcing most of our Thanksgiving dishes to relatives and recruiting teenage “temps” in the kitchen. We’ve dispatched assignments via emails, phone, and “Thank You-in-advance” cards. Aunt Rachel will bring the candied yams; Great Uncle Henry agreed to canned corn, Grandma Lois will cater the mashed potatoes — if she remembers. Last year she got lost on the way over; she claimed we moved without telling her, then she blamed it on urban renewal despite that fact that we’re in the suburbs. Cousin Lidia will transport the stuffing, and her daughter Neely the rolls. And since we are all subsidizing our crazy 2nd cousin twice removed Issac who works for bailed out GM, I insisted he bring six pumpkin pies, and real whipped cream.
Clean up should be a breeze. We simply informed our begrudging kitchen temp staff of family teenagers they “Will Work For Food” like the sign says. Besides, they’ll have it easy. The Styrofoam plates we’ll be using this year are much easier to wash than those bulky porcelain ones. No need to dry them, you just kind of spin them like a Frisbee into to the dish rack and let them drip dry. And after they wash the plastic eating utensils, they can just toss them in a big plastic bag. The paper napkins they can trash of course. I’m not that cheap — I’ll tell them only to save the ones that are still folded and appear unused.
Aunt Rachel expressed concern when she received our request for side dish contributions. “Are you in trouble?” she asked, in a subdued, secretive voice. “Because I can have Ray bring over the Turkey he gets from the company every year.” She was referring to our Uncle Ray, her husband.
I paused just long enough to spark doubt. “Bring a turkey?” Oh, Aunt Rachel.” I let another strategic hesitation linger. “That’s awfully, awfully nice of you, but–”
“I’ll have Ray bring over the turkey then.”
“OK, great.”
My wife managed to overhear our conservation and yelled in the background. “Have Ray’s sister bring her killer deviled eggs?”
So far so good. We usually serve two turkeys to feed our large Thanksgiving gathering; this year we’ll only have to spring for one. If all goes well I may charge for parking.
