Jason Rodriguez - The Moose in the Closet: Our First Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving 2000. I was living in DC and Robin was still up in Boston going to school. We decided to spend Thanksgiving together, as a couple. I really don’t remember whose idea it was but I remember my parents not being happy about the decision – this was my first Thanksgiving away from them and it wasn’t even like I was passing on the feast at Uncle Chris’ house for someone else’s big feast.

I was passing on it for Tofurky.

Ok, let’s back that up. Robin was a vegetarian when we first started dating. I believe she first went veggie back in high school, made it through college, and then tacked on a couple of more years after college as well. She kind of rubbed off on me and the second half of my senior year in college I went veggie as well, lasted about two years. When I started eating chicken and fish again, however, Robin came along with me (she still doesn’t eat any red meats).

Anyway, our first Thanksgiving feast together didn’t even consist of us gathering around a turkey. It was shaped like a turkey. Sort of. A processed turkey. And it had a drumstick with a plastic bone. You baked it in the oven, smothered it with gravy. And if you closed your eyes tight enough, it looked like a turkey.

Sure as fuck didn’t smell or taste like one.

I remember pulling it out of the oven and putting it on a plate alongside mashed potatoes, corn, stuffing, and cranberry sauce and being afraid to eat it. I thought it would taste horrible. I was surprised to learn that it actually didn’t taste horrible. It tasted like nothing. It tasted like the gravy we covered it in. Seriously, you put it in your mouth and it tasted like a chunk of gravy.

A chunk of gravy with the worst imaginable texture. The type of texture that made you gagged. And Robin and I both gagged upon trying to swallow our first bite of tofurky. Chewed it, swallowed it, and chased it down with a beer. We each took a single bite of tofurky before throwing it in the trash. Our Thanksgiving meal consisted of the fixings – we didn’t even have the foresight to buy a pie.

My family called me up to see how our Thanksgiving was going. I told my dad about the tofurky fiasco and he couldn’t help but laugh. They were eating turkey with all the fixings alongside my Grandma’s fantastic Spanish food. Everyone there was laughing and having a good time – dancing like my family always did when they got together. Watching football. Playing darts and dominos.

Robin and I found ourselves spending the evening at the apartment. My friends were out of town (and Robin didn’t actually live in DC yet) so we just had a quiet night of board games and movies.

At the time, it was sweet. Robin and I did the long distance thing for a year and when we got a chance to see each other we tried to spend as much time together as we possibly could. So lying on the futon, playing Uno, and watching Half Baked while drinking beers was a great way to spend Thanksgiving.

At the time.

In retrospect it was the worst Thanksgiving ever. I think Robin would agree.

Labels: dc

Our First Thanksgiving

Thursday, November 23, 2006

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