Well, I think I hexed her. My sons soccer team has been fighting hard all season and last Friday night they were defeated by a very fast and athletic opponent. The boys were only somber for a little while. They quickly realized that they had achieved too much, and then they held their heads high. I’m very proud of her.
I think a curse and a superstition are two different sides of the same coin. Superstition is proactive and intended to produce hoped-for results. I once carried a tiny single serve bottle of Tabasco in my trip computer bag because I’d never died in a plane crash while it was in there. Superstition is intentional and it is my considered opinion – that is, I’ve thought about it for about thirty seconds now – that curses bring bad luck and be recognized in hindsight as I actually talk so much about my super stations for my sons soccer team that jinxed them. In retrospect, this has now become all too clear.
Since it’s the Friday after Thanksgiving, ask yourself if the meal pass you gave yourself yesterday to eat and drink way more than a responsible person should is still active. Well it is. This hall pass is valid until Sunday noon. So yeah, get mashed potatoes and half a dozen Sister Shuberts for breakfast. dinner too! Carbs don’t count until Sunday lunchtime. I myself will cook a pound of Bill E’s bacon in the oven and put it on my sister’s Shuberts. I think Bill E’s Bacon is the best in the world. They are stationed at Fairhope. Please don’t even think about raising your voice to argue. I won’t have it.
It’s the Friday morning after Thanksgiving that I carefully review yesterday’s family conversations, trying to remember if I’ve offended anyone. Luckily, that rarely happens anymore. The whole Marston family – seventeen of us – must have been under one roof last night. That tightness combined with the delirium of a mealtime coma and perhaps one glass of wine too many made me mouth-watering. On Friday mornings I track my conversation steps and start rehearsing my apologies if necessary. I’ve learned that a preemptive apology at 2 p.m. on Thanksgiving Day doesn’t count for anything I might say later in the day or that night. I wish it would be like this.
However, my family rarely goes this route anymore. We’re able to keep controversy out of the celebration or, more likely, avoiding dangerous topics, and it helps if you really like your family, your in-laws, and your nieces and nephews, and I really do. I don’t want to go sideways with any of them. The same goes for my wife’s family reunion, which meets every summer on the Carolina coast. We had sixteen people under one roof for a week last summer and we all got along. I kind of miss the days when there was a misunderstanding, someone got angry and, if we were lucky, blew them up and made a scene. It offered some wonderful breaks from good humor and soothing togetherness and family ties and all that.
Damn it. I probably just jinxed myself again.
I’m Cam Marston and I’m just trying to keep it real.