I Forgot To Add... Racism!

The Mistress reminded me that I forgot to mention Saturday's party at Easycheese's house.  Every year (I'm guessing) Easycheese, an old friend from high school, hosts a "Thanksgiving Leftovers Party", the theme of which is: bring a dish of leftover Thanksgiving food.  Though doors technically opened at one, by the time the Mistress and I arrived (at seven or eight I think) there was already a room temperature buffet of meats and deserts. 

Our contribution was a pumpkin roll, one of six I helped D.M.H. make.  I'm glad she set one aside for the party, as I would hate to have to pick out one leftover and bring it, thus breaking up the "Thanksgiving Set".  Thanksgiving isn't about the Turkey.  It's about the synergism of all the holiday dinner components. 

I'm never using the word synergism to describe anything food related again.  You know why.

This party was a get together for people who knew each other in high school, and the people some of those people met in college.  I was very excited to see some of them, The Big E in particular.  See, The Big E and Easycheese were in my Spanish class my freshmen year of high school.  Now, myself, I liked Star Trek.  I liked They Might Be Giants.  I spent most of my time with my computer.  I was, what you might say, a nerd.  Being a freshmen, I was still feeling out my place in the ambient social hierarchies.  The Big E and Easycheese were both upperclassmen, and they were "nerds" as well.  With them, I was able to delight in and celebrate oddities and absurdities everyone else was too cool or too distracted to get.  They made it "okay" to be a "nerd", and I am forever indebted to them for that.

Also at the party was Raucous P. L. B. Filibuster.  Raucous is brash, loud, forward to the point of being borderline rude, and just a damn good time.  He also was an upperclassmen I knew from high school, and I still can't put my finger on why we get along.  I don't even know that we do.  Maybe I just enjoy listening to his outrageous rants and biting comments, most of which I agree with.

As the night settled in, a large group of us gathered around to play Apples to Apples, a game in which everyone has five cards which conatin nouns, such as "Detroit, Mars, Anne Boleyn, The Philadelphia 76'ers, and Infants".  Then one player gets an adjective card, such as "Respectful".  Each player then picks which card in their hand they think the player holding the adjective card thinks most represents that adjective.  That player then gets to pick which noun he likes best for his adjective.  It sounds straightforward, but it's a wonderful game that really brings out people's individual senses of humor.  My favorite (okay, the only one I can remember), is I voted Nicholas Cage as the most "Christy" submission I was given.  (Christy was not a card, but what came about when I was passed a "Create Your Own Category" card on my first turn and proclaimed "Jesus Christ... I don't know.  Jesus Christ.")

During a break in the action an argument kicked up between a woman whom I don't know well and Raucous.  I wish I knew how it started, but to summarize, this woman, an adult near age 30, who seemed an intelligent person otherwise, thinks, honestly, that when Black people wash their skin with white fabric, that they turn the fabric black.  At first I thought she was joking, but she dizzied me with this gem:  "It's not their skin, it's the different oils on their skin, and it's the oils that turn the washcloth black."  Raucous fought valiently in the name of common sense, but nothing short of having an actual person with dark complexion wash with a white cloth for all to see would sway her from her misguided notions.  "That's why they don't like to go swimming!"

At which someone brilliantly cleared the awkwardness with a nerd stirring a capella rendition of "Racist Friend". 

(Track 6 off the album Flood by They Might Be Giants, 1990.)