Just North of Whoville by Turiskylie, Joyce (mobi ebook reader TXT) 📕

it start smelling like turkey in here? That’s how I know it’s done at my Mom’s house.”

This went on for another two hours. To pass the time, we played a board game. Sorry. That seemed to be appropriate.

By four o’clock, we were starving. I pulled out a 500 piece puzzle, which we half-heartedly began putting together. But the turkey still refused to turn that golden brown we’d all seen at Mom’s house.

By five o’clock, Steve had fallen asleep on the couch while Timmy read a two month-old fashion magazine. This was terrible. I was the worst hostess ever. No appetizers. Not even a bit of salad to stave off the famine. At one point, Steve opened his eyes, asked if the turkey was ready, I said “not yet” and he rolled over back to sleep.

Then Timmy fell asleep.

Okay, I’ll accept the award for Worst Hostess Ever, but in my acceptance speech, I’d like to thank my shitty guests. Who falls asleep on Thanksgiving before they eat?

“Oh honey,” my Mom said on the phone while washing her Thanksgiving dishes, “It sounds like your oven’s broken.”

I took off the oven mitts and touched the pan with my bare hand. The oven said 350, but it was barely a hundred degrees in there.

An hour later when the pizza arrived, I woke them up.

“What happened to the turkey?” Timmy asked as he wiped the sleep out of his eyes.

“It’s a turkey pizza. With cranberry sauce,” I added as I opened the can.

As I opened the pizza box, suddenly Timmy let out a squeal and dashed to the TV to turn up the volume.

“You’re kidding me,” I said as I looked at the television set. “They’re playing How the Grinch Stole Christmas on Thanksgiving? Isn’t it a little early for that?”

“Don’t be a Grinch, Dorrie,” Steve laughed.

They were my guests, so I had to keep them happy. Lousy, sleeping, food-eating guests. As Boris Karloff’s creepy voice read about the happy Whos down in Whoville who just lovedy-loved Christmas and The Grinch who didn’t quite so much, Steve rubbed it in even more.

“Oh my god, Dorrie---that’s you!”

“That is not me! I’m not The Grinch!” I replied as The Grinch listed all the things he hated about Christmas. The bells and the noise and all the Whos singing.

“Dorrie, that is totally you,” Steve started cracking up.

“You do complain about Christmas a lot,” Timmy admitted reluctantly.

“You don’t get it! Even The Whos don’t sing for two months!” I tried to explain as the song about what a mean one that Mr. Grinch started to play.

Was I really a Grinch? I wasn’t trying to ruin anyone’s Christmas. I had no plans to steal the trees and the presents and even the Roast Beast. Just then, as The Grinch tied a horn to the head of his little dog Max, I realized what was really going on.

10

“I am not The Grinch. I’m that little dog Max!” I declared to Dr. Prince the following week. “That dog who has to do all the work and gets pushed around and has to drag a heavy sleigh up and down the side of Mount Crumpit. I’m trying to wag my tail, but I have to haul my wet towels and laundry up and down five flights of stairs. There’s no happy ending for me. Where’s my Roast Beast and a pat on the head?”

Dr. Prince just sighed and wrote some stuff down on her yellow legal pad.

“You don’t get it,” I wasn’t about to be deterred by yellow paper. “You’re one of the Whos. But I have to live just north of there. It’s not prime real estate, but it’s the best I can do right now. And you saw the parade…and my oven…and turkey pizza… I’m trying. You saw me trying,” I trickled out.

“Wow,” she said in reply. “You’ve got some shitty luck.”

I was surprised she was finally on my side. So much so that I found myself taking the opposing viewpoint.

“But…don’t you think…that sometimes people make their own luck?”

“Not in this case,” she said with certainty. “You got some bad juju going on. I saw you trying. I mean, like on National fucking TV trying.”

“I was. I was trying,” I said breathlessly.

“Maybe you’re cursed.”

“Don’t think I haven’t wondered about that,” I laughed.

But she looked serious.

“Did you piss somebody off? Like a voodoo priestess or…oooo! You know what? Maybe it’s Santeria?”

“I…don’t think so,” I tried not to insult her. “I don’t believe in any of those things.”

“Oh, you don’t have to believe, mami. It just happens. No, you are definitely cursed.”

“I… I really don’t think so,” I tried to bring her back to earth. “You know, it was probably just bad luck, that’s all.”

“What happened to you, I would not wish on a dog. Do you have a priest? One who does exorcisms?”

“No. But I don’t think it’s as serious as all that. Just a bad week, that’s all.”

“Bad week? That was like the week of Passover. Wait a minute---lamb’s blood. My brother-in-law is a butcher. Yeah, yeah, I’ll give him a call,” she said as she reached for her cell phone.

“I don’t think I need lamb’s blood,” I tried to stop her from dialing. “I’m sure next week will be better.”

She put down her phone and just stared at me for a moment.

“Then why did you make me listen to that shit for forty-five minutes?”

“I….I don’t…I just…” I started to stammer, “you asked me about my week, so…I just…”

And then I trailed off into a sigh.

“Dorrie, you come in here every week like you’re fucking dying. I’m sitting here, a highly trained psychiatrist, and I’m listening to a fifteen minute story about a piece of turkey. Ay dios