the ornaments look pretty but they're pulling down the branches of the tree
Remember two years ago, when I said that that was the last Christmas Party I was going to ever go to?
Yeah. About that.
Not only did I attend the party, but I also cooked for the party. I charmingly called it a Meataganza: an Extravaganza of Meat. Mom and I went to BJ's Wholesale a week ago. My plan was to bake a couple of turkey breasts and some of my traditional BBQ Pulled Pork, and also a baklava, because I am nothing if not completely masochistic. But BJ's didn't have just turkey breasts, so I ended up with a 12 pound whole frozen turkey and a ten-pound pork loin.
Yesterday morning, the ten-pound pork loin was cut up into my crock pot and had been simmering on low all night; it was time for the turkey. Mom had given me an oven bag and a couple of bay leaves and "instructions," as it was my first turkey. The instructions were how to use the oven bag, not how to cook the actual damn turkey. Thanks, Mom.
So I called her up.
Mom: Hi, this is Maggie.
Me: Okay, this is probably a stupid question, but I'm going to ask it anyway: is it weird that my turkey had two necks?
Mom: Well, frozen turkeys are packaged on an assembly line, so --
Me: So there's no chance that I managed to get the weird mutant turkey, right? It's just a normal accident that mine may have had two heads?
Mom: I wouldn't tell your employees that.
Me: Oh, screw that, they're lucky I'm not bringing two tons of Chinese Food from the Wok Inn at this point. Although Brad would like that.
Mom: So just throw the necks away.
Me: Right. Tossed. Now. There's this plastic thingee holding the legs together and I got it off the legs because I have to rinse it out, right?
Mom: Yes, you do.
Me: But the plastic thingee won't come out. Is it supposed to?
Mom: If you yank it hard enough, it probably would, but then you'd have to truss the legs together.
Me: Ooohhh, it's the trusser.
Mom: I don't think that's a word, but yeah.
Me: Okay, I should be good now. Thanks, Mom!
Mom: Good luck.
Long cooking story short (too late!): Turkey and pork were a success. Although, while slathering the Barbeque sauce onto the pork, I had two distinct thoughts:
1) I could NOT stop seeing the scene from "Bad Blood" where Scully is laying the large intestine into the scale and saying "Large intestine... tissue appears healthy,"
and 2) well -- I called and left Uncle Jean a voicemail:
Me: Hi Jean, it's Alaina. So. I think I just got tennis elbow from stirring the pulled pork. Dude, that is a lot of meat. It took an entire bottle to cover it up. You're welcome.
Finally got to the party, and everyone loved the food. Jean E. also helped cook the vegetables. Judy, the crazy rabbit lady, only made stuffing. Whatever -- I'm over it.
Johnny O: Weevil, what's with this music?
Me: Hey -- Chef picks the tunes. You don't like it? You cook next year.
Melissa: Hey, Alaina, was I supposed to get someone a gift?
Me: No, why?
Melissa: There's a present up there with my name on it.
Me: That's Johnny's handwriting.
Melissa: Oh, okay. That's cool.
Me: I need an involuntary volunteer! Jean has more food that she needs to unload.
Brad: I'll go with you, Kid.
Me: Yay!
Brad: Hey, you're wearing a skirt!
Me: Yes, I am. This is like, the one time a year I get to dress up.
Brad: I wish I'd known. I'd've worn mine.
Me: You do not have a skirt.
Brad: I have a kilt.
Me: You have a kilt?
Brad: Yeah, I do.
Me: I don't even know how to respond to that.
Charlie: Whose shoes are those?
Me: Oh, they're mine. I was going to wear them --
Robinson: And you're not, why?
Me: I wore them for, like, five minutes, and then I realized that I was a foot taller than Brad in them, so I decided to wear my flats instead.
Brad: HEY.
Mac: Hey Alaina, what kind of music is this? Where's the Christmas music?
Me: It's on there! It's just buried under about three hundred other songs that I like. And I repeat - you don't like it, you cook next year.
Mac: I brought a pie!
Brad: Where's the Pearl Jam?
Me: Bradley!
Brad: I really love that song "Better Man."
[I throw my napkin at him.]
(although I did see him jamming to the Donnas later that night. Interesting.)
John and I were each other's Secret Santa. I got him a Firefly keychain. He got me ... well...
Brad: What did Alsine get?
Me: Shut up, Brad. [I unwrap my present from John to find...] Used copies of Fargo and Pulp Fiction.
Brad: Oh, right! Because you've never seen Pulp Fiction!
Melissa: You've never seen Pulp Fiction?!
Me: No...
Brad: AND SHE'S NEVER SEEN SHAWSHANK!
Nearly the Entire Department: YOU'VE NEVER SEEN SHAWSHANK?!
Me: OH MY GOD, REALLY?! I AM NEVER COOKING FOR ANY OF YOU EVER AGAIN.
And then -- then! -- there was Yankee Swap. Somehow Brad went first.
Brad: Bigger's not always better, huh Kid?
Me: [coyly] I don't know what you're talking about.
[He picks the biggest box. He opens it, and almost falls over.]
Someone: What is it?
Brad: Adult toys.
Me: BRADLEY!
Someone else: You got hosed, man.
[He pulls out a hose... that is attached to a vacuum cleaner.]
Brad: Oh, this is priceless.
Me: Best Yankee Swap ever!
A bottle of wine is the next gift that is opened.
Me: That's going to be this year's scratch tickets.
Terri: It may not last till the end of the night.
Rosemary: Does anyone have a corkscrew?
Me: No really, does anyone have a corkscrew? I won't tell. I don't have my manager nametag on.
Terri: It's a twist-top!
Me: Bonus! Let's go!
No one did. Wussies.
Terri opened up one of my Yankee Swap gifts: a box of Jolly Rancher candy canes.
Steve: Hey, someone found that in the back of Camping!
Brad: [with a wink at me] Hey, found items are fair game in Yankee Swap!
Alice: And these ones aren't even broken!
Now it's John's turn at Yankee Swap. And it's important to note that Brad chose this moment to step outside for a moment - most likely to head to Uncle Jean's favorite room, the Room of Rest. So when John brings his Yankee Swap gift back to the table, this is what Brad misses:
John unwraps the gift and finds: an empty paint can, two old subwoofer speakers, and -- I swear, I am never making this up --: a spider.
Terri: There's a spider!
Steve: That's a freebie!
John: Y'know, when I was in the helicopter from Parkview to Maine Med after suffering a heart attack, one thought went racing through my mind: I can't miss Yankee Swap. And this is what I get!
Me: Oh my god, the spider's still alive!
Mac: It's a black widow!
Me: No, it's just a daddy-long-legs, but still -- Oh Johnny, go get another one, there's plenty of presents up there - this one's null and void.
Brad: What'd I miss?
Me: YOU ARE TOTALLY THE BLITZ.
Brad: I don't wanna be the Blitz!
At the very end of Yankee Swap, there were still extra presents. John ended up leaving the paint can spider speakers and ended up with a pen I bought at Hannaford that looked like a flamingo made out of tinsel, and Brad handed me the gift he brought for Yankee Swap --
Me: I don't want The Club!
Now, two years ago -- the year I premiered my Yankee Swap Video, but never told anyone about the party after, because all in all, it was kind of unmemorable -- Uncle Jean attended the Men's Christmas Party for the last time. He brought Yankee Swap gifts, but then never stayed to play Yankee Swap. And Brad ended up with the gifts. What did Uncle Jean bring?
The Club. [Or, as I was later to find out, an insufferable knockoff of The Club: it doesn't adjust, and it doesn't even lock! What the fuck is this thing?]
And Brad's so classy, he "wrapped" it in an old Abercrombie and Fitch bag. But I kept it -- The Club and the bag -- because I can do one (or all) of four things:
1) I can hang it in my office, above my desk, with the phrase etched into it "The Beatings Will Continue Until You Stop Putting Your Crap on My Desk!"
2) [Dependent on whether he religiously locks his car] I can sneak into Brad's Jeep and Club it
3) I can give it back to Brad so he can mail it back to Uncle Jean C.O.D.
4) I can bring it to the Laffely Family Christmas Party and give it back to Uncle Jean that way.
However, I found myself just ... fiddling with it while I was watching Psych tonight.
Me: Dammit!
Amelia: What?
Me: I keep fiddling with the Club.
Amelia: Yeah, can you stop that? It's kind of creepy.
Me: Dammit, Brad! Somehow this is all your fault!
Yeah. About that.
Not only did I attend the party, but I also cooked for the party. I charmingly called it a Meataganza: an Extravaganza of Meat. Mom and I went to BJ's Wholesale a week ago. My plan was to bake a couple of turkey breasts and some of my traditional BBQ Pulled Pork, and also a baklava, because I am nothing if not completely masochistic. But BJ's didn't have just turkey breasts, so I ended up with a 12 pound whole frozen turkey and a ten-pound pork loin.
Yesterday morning, the ten-pound pork loin was cut up into my crock pot and had been simmering on low all night; it was time for the turkey. Mom had given me an oven bag and a couple of bay leaves and "instructions," as it was my first turkey. The instructions were how to use the oven bag, not how to cook the actual damn turkey. Thanks, Mom.
So I called her up.
Mom: Hi, this is Maggie.
Me: Okay, this is probably a stupid question, but I'm going to ask it anyway: is it weird that my turkey had two necks?
Mom: Well, frozen turkeys are packaged on an assembly line, so --
Me: So there's no chance that I managed to get the weird mutant turkey, right? It's just a normal accident that mine may have had two heads?
Mom: I wouldn't tell your employees that.
Me: Oh, screw that, they're lucky I'm not bringing two tons of Chinese Food from the Wok Inn at this point. Although Brad would like that.
Mom: So just throw the necks away.
Me: Right. Tossed. Now. There's this plastic thingee holding the legs together and I got it off the legs because I have to rinse it out, right?
Mom: Yes, you do.
Me: But the plastic thingee won't come out. Is it supposed to?
Mom: If you yank it hard enough, it probably would, but then you'd have to truss the legs together.
Me: Ooohhh, it's the trusser.
Mom: I don't think that's a word, but yeah.
Me: Okay, I should be good now. Thanks, Mom!
Mom: Good luck.
Long cooking story short (too late!): Turkey and pork were a success. Although, while slathering the Barbeque sauce onto the pork, I had two distinct thoughts:
1) I could NOT stop seeing the scene from "Bad Blood" where Scully is laying the large intestine into the scale and saying "Large intestine... tissue appears healthy,"
and 2) well -- I called and left Uncle Jean a voicemail:
Me: Hi Jean, it's Alaina. So. I think I just got tennis elbow from stirring the pulled pork. Dude, that is a lot of meat. It took an entire bottle to cover it up. You're welcome.
Finally got to the party, and everyone loved the food. Jean E. also helped cook the vegetables. Judy, the crazy rabbit lady, only made stuffing. Whatever -- I'm over it.
Johnny O: Weevil, what's with this music?
Me: Hey -- Chef picks the tunes. You don't like it? You cook next year.
Melissa: Hey, Alaina, was I supposed to get someone a gift?
Me: No, why?
Melissa: There's a present up there with my name on it.
Me: That's Johnny's handwriting.
Melissa: Oh, okay. That's cool.
Me: I need an involuntary volunteer! Jean has more food that she needs to unload.
Brad: I'll go with you, Kid.
Me: Yay!
Brad: Hey, you're wearing a skirt!
Me: Yes, I am. This is like, the one time a year I get to dress up.
Brad: I wish I'd known. I'd've worn mine.
Me: You do not have a skirt.
Brad: I have a kilt.
Me: You have a kilt?
Brad: Yeah, I do.
Me: I don't even know how to respond to that.
Charlie: Whose shoes are those?
Me: Oh, they're mine. I was going to wear them --
Robinson: And you're not, why?
Me: I wore them for, like, five minutes, and then I realized that I was a foot taller than Brad in them, so I decided to wear my flats instead.
Brad: HEY.
Mac: Hey Alaina, what kind of music is this? Where's the Christmas music?
Me: It's on there! It's just buried under about three hundred other songs that I like. And I repeat - you don't like it, you cook next year.
Mac: I brought a pie!
Brad: Where's the Pearl Jam?
Me: Bradley!
Brad: I really love that song "Better Man."
[I throw my napkin at him.]
(although I did see him jamming to the Donnas later that night. Interesting.)
John and I were each other's Secret Santa. I got him a Firefly keychain. He got me ... well...
Brad: What did Alsine get?
Me: Shut up, Brad. [I unwrap my present from John to find...] Used copies of Fargo and Pulp Fiction.
Brad: Oh, right! Because you've never seen Pulp Fiction!
Melissa: You've never seen Pulp Fiction?!
Me: No...
Brad: AND SHE'S NEVER SEEN SHAWSHANK!
Nearly the Entire Department: YOU'VE NEVER SEEN SHAWSHANK?!
Me: OH MY GOD, REALLY?! I AM NEVER COOKING FOR ANY OF YOU EVER AGAIN.
And then -- then! -- there was Yankee Swap. Somehow Brad went first.
Brad: Bigger's not always better, huh Kid?
Me: [coyly] I don't know what you're talking about.
[He picks the biggest box. He opens it, and almost falls over.]
Someone: What is it?
Brad: Adult toys.
Me: BRADLEY!
Someone else: You got hosed, man.
[He pulls out a hose... that is attached to a vacuum cleaner.]
Brad: Oh, this is priceless.
Me: Best Yankee Swap ever!
A bottle of wine is the next gift that is opened.
Me: That's going to be this year's scratch tickets.
Terri: It may not last till the end of the night.
Rosemary: Does anyone have a corkscrew?
Me: No really, does anyone have a corkscrew? I won't tell. I don't have my manager nametag on.
Terri: It's a twist-top!
Me: Bonus! Let's go!
No one did. Wussies.
Terri opened up one of my Yankee Swap gifts: a box of Jolly Rancher candy canes.
Steve: Hey, someone found that in the back of Camping!
Brad: [with a wink at me] Hey, found items are fair game in Yankee Swap!
Alice: And these ones aren't even broken!
Now it's John's turn at Yankee Swap. And it's important to note that Brad chose this moment to step outside for a moment - most likely to head to Uncle Jean's favorite room, the Room of Rest. So when John brings his Yankee Swap gift back to the table, this is what Brad misses:
John unwraps the gift and finds: an empty paint can, two old subwoofer speakers, and -- I swear, I am never making this up --: a spider.
Terri: There's a spider!
Steve: That's a freebie!
John: Y'know, when I was in the helicopter from Parkview to Maine Med after suffering a heart attack, one thought went racing through my mind: I can't miss Yankee Swap. And this is what I get!
Me: Oh my god, the spider's still alive!
Mac: It's a black widow!
Me: No, it's just a daddy-long-legs, but still -- Oh Johnny, go get another one, there's plenty of presents up there - this one's null and void.
Brad: What'd I miss?
Me: YOU ARE TOTALLY THE BLITZ.
Brad: I don't wanna be the Blitz!
At the very end of Yankee Swap, there were still extra presents. John ended up leaving the paint can spider speakers and ended up with a pen I bought at Hannaford that looked like a flamingo made out of tinsel, and Brad handed me the gift he brought for Yankee Swap --
Me: I don't want The Club!
Now, two years ago -- the year I premiered my Yankee Swap Video, but never told anyone about the party after, because all in all, it was kind of unmemorable -- Uncle Jean attended the Men's Christmas Party for the last time. He brought Yankee Swap gifts, but then never stayed to play Yankee Swap. And Brad ended up with the gifts. What did Uncle Jean bring?
The Club. [Or, as I was later to find out, an insufferable knockoff of The Club: it doesn't adjust, and it doesn't even lock! What the fuck is this thing?]
And Brad's so classy, he "wrapped" it in an old Abercrombie and Fitch bag. But I kept it -- The Club and the bag -- because I can do one (or all) of four things:
1) I can hang it in my office, above my desk, with the phrase etched into it "The Beatings Will Continue Until You Stop Putting Your Crap on My Desk!"
2) [Dependent on whether he religiously locks his car] I can sneak into Brad's Jeep and Club it
3) I can give it back to Brad so he can mail it back to Uncle Jean C.O.D.
4) I can bring it to the Laffely Family Christmas Party and give it back to Uncle Jean that way.
However, I found myself just ... fiddling with it while I was watching Psych tonight.
Me: Dammit!
Amelia: What?
Me: I keep fiddling with the Club.
Amelia: Yeah, can you stop that? It's kind of creepy.
Me: Dammit, Brad! Somehow this is all your fault!