The Thanksgiving Pinata or You Don't Gradually Turn Into Your Parents, It Happens Quite Suddenly

I don't really want to say that our family-based Thanksgivings aren't as good as our annual "Friend's Thanksgving", held annually the Sunday after the actual Thanksgiving. However, none of the family Thanksgivings included a pinata so, uh, how could they have been as good? In fact, all future holidays will be judged on a "Pinata, yes? Pinata, no?" scale.

The Friend's Thanksgiving is also better, not only because the drunk-getting is based on recreation rather than desperation, but because of the total and absolute chaos generated by the ten friends' kids, all but one under the age of seven; with most in that two to five year-old sweet spot, when running around while screaming really isn't a pass-time, it's a way of life.

Speaking of screaming and chaos, Max has been experimenting recently with the design tolerances of his parents' fragile psyches. This has resulted in two things, one tragic and one less so. First, tragically, (and, I guess, unsurprisingly) the time for me to utter that great truth of parenting, "Because I said so." arrived. The only way to become more like my father at this point is to put on a few pounds, sell somebody some Crop Hail Insurance and tell many bad jokes only I think are funny. Frankly, when I said, "Because I said so!", I thought all those things were going to happen spontaneously.

Less tragically, the failure of Max to get his jacket off the kitchen floor, which resulted in an epic tantrum, which resulted in me uttering the dreaded BISS, which resulted in Max being exiled to his room, resulted in this comic relief:

I'm standing in the hallway, holding Max's door shut as he steadfastly refuses to pick up his jacket, pounding on the door and screaming. Max is gloriously indignant: distraught not only that he's in his room but also because we have the audacity to ask him to pick up his jacket.

Miles toddles up and, since the crazy person having a conniption couldn't be his normally pretty nice big brother, he wonders, "Who's that? Who's that, Daddy?"

Rather than try to explain the complexities of the situation, I just replied, "Who's in there, Miles? Ohhh, I don't know. Linda Blair?"

See what I mean about not being funny anymore?