Thanksgiving Horror Stories: A Winner!
This awesome lengthy comment was left by commenter Tman in response to CharlesFerruzza’ call for Thanksgiving horror stories. I assume loyal Fat City readers have already seen it, but damn, it bears repeating:
One year my two sisters and I met in our parents home to share a
Thanksgiving lovefest … We all live far
apart, save for Mom and Dad.
So far, so good. We share laughs. My father can only remember all of my
mistakes and we all laugh heartily about the stories.
Fast forward to Thanksgiving Dinner, at my request we are having prime
rib. We all agree that turkey sucks. We sit down. Pass dishes. Make
yummy sounds.
I take my first bite of meat. It lodges at the bottom of my esophagus.
I am a fast eating pig by the way. Before I notice the stuck meat I
have already followed with another large bite of meat and some mashed
potatoes. I wash this down with water, big gulps. Kaphloooom!!! There
is no place for the water to go but back out the entrance. I spit water
all over my plate. I am unable to catch my breath… with all the water
coming up. I stand up and make “blahk, blahk” sounds. Both of my
sisters jump up and attempt the Heimlich. Neither have arms long enough
to reach around my chest. My older sister begins punching me in the gut
attempting to dislodge (i guess). Her punches feel like a four-year-old is
throwing ping pong balls at me.
While I am being wrestled and beaten by my sisters I am truly in a
panic. I have yet to secure a breathing pattern. My parents are sitting
motionless, still in their dinner chairs. I am pointing to my Dad’s
face and then pointing to the phone on the wall. I do this motion
several times. He is froze and NEVER understands that I am instructing
him to call 911. I point to my Mom’s face then to the phone. She does
not move. I don’t even think she blinked. I push my sisters away and
begin to catch my breath.
I am in excruciating pain. The meat stuck at the very bottom of my esophagus is lodged and my body’s natural response is to apply internal
pressure to push it through to my stomach and to create gobs of phlegm to
lubricate.
Once I start breathing, my father starts asking me if I want to go to
the doctor. I am staring, breathing, and he is asking me if I want to
go to the doctor. HELL YES I DO.
As we walk to the car the food dislodges. We return to the house and
sit at the table.
All of these events occurred within 2 minutes.
Sitting at the table, no one is interested in eating. My older sister
goes out on the enclosed porch and returns with a small yellow coffee
cup. Within minutes she is in tears of fear and laughter. Not the
normal kind.
We all decide to go visit 92-year-old Grandmother in the care home. As we
ride we all begin to notice the older sister’s increasing level of
intoxication. A 30 minute ride gave her plenty of time to medicate. She
reveals that she has a poem she wrote and plans to read to Grandma.
Keep in mind, when she drinks her persona and voice mimic a 9 year old
girl.
Grandma is precious. She has her wits but is woefully deaf and
lulls in and out of sleep. My drunk sister whips our a full page,single
space poem and begins reading it to Grandma. We all smell the booze and
notice the girly recitation. The parents have exited the room, finding
their oldest’s child’s behavior to be unbearable.
I am standing at Grandma’s feet. My younger sister is near her legs.
The POET is near her shoulder. Grandma is propped up with pillows.
Younger sister and I are making small talk with Grandma all the while
the POET is in full recitation. Grandma gets a pained look on her face
and in her weak voice says “please go, go.” Younger and I gave her a
squeeze on the foot and leg and then immediately realized that Grandma
was having an unfortunate unplanned shit. We exited immediately.
The poet continued reading the poem as us siblings moved to the
hallway. We listened as the drunken poet continued to recite the poem
amid her own gagging and awking.
The recitation sounded like a person
being squeezed against a wall by an elephant. “Ahhgg, uhhhjjj, the
doves…uh, uh.” My parents had shown up in the hallway and we all were
bent over laughing so hard we were dead silent. Finally we heard
“grandma, grandma, uhgg uhgg…” The Poet emerged from the room red
faced and gasping.
It’s not over yet.
The staff cleaned Grandma up and brought her out to the visiting area.
She laughed and apologized. We treated her like a queen. The Poet sat
down beside her and started the entire poem over again. It was brutal.
As we exited, I got to the car first and found several more gulps of
booze in the coffee mug. I poured it out on the grass.
During the exit ride from the parking lot I heard the poet say “hey,
that’s not nice.”
When we got home my father gave me a hug for the first time in my 33
years of life.
Now that, my friends, is a horror story. Thanks, Tman.
