Thanksgiving: Just like planes, trains and automobiles.

Well, another Thanksgiving has come and gone. This year the family took the easy way out and just went to a Thanksgiving Day buffet. Completely the way to go…no mess, no fuss, no dishes (God, I hate doing dishes!). Besides, since the death of my mom, it’s never been the same since. Just another day. So this year we went to some little corner restaurant/bar in a small town outside of St. Cloud. I don’t’ remember the name of the town…it started with a “D” though…that much I do remember. Dulham, maybe? Maybe not. Anyway…it reminded me of a scene out of some sort of movie or a Lifetime channel TV special. The men were at the bar talking and playing the video games, the women were off at a table talking up a storm and the kids were running around. It made me think of the movie “Gremlins” or any one of the movies in the genre of “local boy moves away and returns to town to reconnect with his past and confront his personal demons and finds love when he least expected it”. It was nice actually. Everyone got along and there was no fighting…which is rare, very rare.

But, getting to my sister’s was another story. I had planned on going up north on Wednesday night, but at the last minute I got lazy and decided I would go in the morning. When I woke up it was snowing quite a bit where I live…enough to cover the all the grass and roads and the car had to be brushed off. I was actually brushing off my car when one of my neighbors came up to me and asked me to loan her my brush and ice scraper. Fine no big deal. But, then she stuck out her hand. I guess the fact that I was in the middle of cleaning off my own car was not important to her and that her needs were greater than my own, despite the fact that she is a complete and total stranger to me. I handed over my brush and just stared her down in a passive aggressive manner. After all, it is the holiday season…who am I to be rude? It’s a good thing I am done with the steroids for my laryngitis though otherwise I would probably be in jail in right for another episode of roid rage. Thank God for small miracles.

Once I got on the freeway it was like a flipping blizzard at times…the snow would come down so hard and fast I couldn’t see anything and all the cars would slow down to a creep and then it would clear and we would all put the pedal to the metal and gun it until the next mini-blizzard would hit. Finally I got off 394 and was heading north on 494 and traffic came to stop again. After barely moving for 20 minutes I started to debate if the Thanksgiving buffet was worth all the aggravation. Finally traffic broke free. No accident, no roadwork, no nothing. I have no idea why it was so clogged up. I filled up on gas in Maple Grove and hit 94. Well, much to my anger, 94 was now at a complete and total dead stop. So I made the first exit I could and just snaked my way to Highway 10. I was on the phone with my sister while she was looking at a map to try and figure out where I was and what I needed to take to get to Highway 10. Once I finally made it onto 10, I was stopped yet again because someone’s car broke down at the stop light. Let me tell you this…darting into the other traffic lane while the one you are in is at a dead stop is D-A-N-G-E-R-O-U-S. One would think the cars in the other lane would slow down, but no, I think they actually sped up. After seeing two other cars almost get smashed into, I decided to go in the other direction and exit the stalled lane via the turn lane. Yes, I am brilliant. After another few minutes I was finally back on track and headed up north. Thankfully I had Paula on the phone to keep me company.

What a pain the ass that trip was. No lie.

Next year I will totally go up the night before and just stick to the original plan.

STICK. WITH. THE. PLAN.