Thank You

         Today’s Thanksgiving, it’s supposed to be the last Thursday of November I think. My family usually either had a big meal or went to a cousin’s house. Well that was about two years ago though, with my brother and mother having to work, and nobody to take me to my cousin's house we haven’t gone there for the last two years. For these two years I mostly just ate with my brother or my mother during thanksgiving. Well as the years go by I get less excited for thanksgiving, but this year was a little different as my brother and mother would both be home. Quite the lucky day, my brother would have to go to work after he ate though.

The start of Thanksgiving weekend came and a nice four days free from school, and four days without seeing your person. Well an excitement welled up in me for the day. Though my mother would go to work in the morning she would be back by dinner, so I was home alone with my brother till dinner. Well we’ll see if we do anything else today.

After some breakfast I sat on my bed looking out the window. It was soothing just to do nothing,it cleared my head from a lot of things. My brother suddenly came in and said

“C’mere, we got stuff to do.”

“Like what?”

“Get some groceries, and prep some food.”

“Are we going to the store now?”

“Yeah, come on.” I went and got my jacket and then followed my brother in my PJs. We went outside to the car, the car was shared between my mom and my brother, and some other family members if they needed it. The grocery store was a short drive away from our house, about a 9 minute drive. When we got there there were more people than usual, but not too crowded. Most people probably did their shopping yesterday trying to be smart. It had been a while since I went to the grocery store with somebody else. It was pretty exciting going to the grocery stores, all kinds of stuff there: one turn and you might strike gold.

“Uhh so we gotta get turkey, onions, potatoes, sweet potatoes, stuffing, peppers, and some other stuff. Go pick some soda out, I’ll start getting the stuff.”

“Nice, got it.” Always excited with soda, probably cause of the large amount of sugar in it. After going to the soda aisle and getting a couple 2 liters I decided to look around for a bit while my brother was getting his stuff. I was in the frozen food section and it looked pretty tasty. They had about everything from frozen pizza to chicken nuggets. I could probably stay there for a while. While I was wandering in the frozen food aisle I was wondering the chances I’d see you here, probably 50/50, though I’ve only seen one other classmate I knew from school here.

Well after I got bored of looking at frozen chicken, and burgers I went to look for my brother. It took me a while since this grocery store was pretty big, but I found him. And when I found him his shopping cart was quite full. Onions, canned beans, stuffing, pie crust, cookies, oven mitts, frozen turkey, and canned pumpkin pie mix.

“Are ya done” I said.

“Yeah, just about. Put the soda in here” He pointed into the cart.

“Okay” I put the soda in the shopping cart. Then I noticed the lack of produce in the cart. “Where are the potatoes?”

“I’mma go get them at the street market, I’m pretty sure they're selling some for cheap.”

“Why the oven mitts?”

“Cause we don't have oven mitts.” He looked at me like I was dumb, and then he did the swirly finger thing at his head to show that I’m crazy

The bastard. “Well we never use oven mitts.”

“Well they were cool looking, and on sale so you know.”

“Ah whatever, are you paying.”

“Heck yeah I’m paying, you think mom gonna give me money for groceries.”

“Eh, I don’t know.”

“Alright you done, I’mma check out.”

“Yeah I’m done.” We checkout our stuff, load it into the car, and then head out to the street market. It would be another 10 minute drive. The street market was on a bustling street full of immigrants that came to America. Near the street market were all the immigrants who sold stuff for cheap, all tryna make a buck. The whole thing took about 5 minutes to get the potatoes and bell peppers. Yup we should’ve bought them at the store.

“So why didn’t we buy it at the store.”

“Causeee, it’s cheaper here, aight well maybe we should've gone to the store, let's just go home. What’s done is done.”

“Okay, okay, let's go.” After that second pickup we were out for nearly an hour just for some grocery, plus a little extra. The drive home was about 15 minutes. When we got home me and my brother started preparing the mash potatoes, turkeys, stuffing. The time when my mother would come home would be about 6, so we had some prepping to do. My cooking experience before that was fried sunny side up eggs, bacon, and toast, so my assignment of dicing vegetables was pretty daunting. While I was doing that my brother was prepping the turkey by putting all sorts of things up its butt. A stick of butter, some leftover chips, some broccoli in the fridge to make it healthy, he put some dr.Peppa for extra flavor, well we’ll see how that turns out. I kept staring at him while he was mixing up the turkey stuffing.

“Trust, this is David’s secret blend in the making right here. After this I’ll be famous.”

“Yeah, for sure.” I said with a very big hint of sarcasm. Well this year I guess I had a lot to be thankful for when I thought about it, you know I’m gonna get a thanksgiving with my whole family, well not the whole but you know the important ones, I’ve been getting better grades than last year somehow(probably because I have less classes), and thankful for you. Well even though it’s been kinda painful for a bit I’d still would do it all again, I think this love changed me from before, and I like that change.

Before I knew it six came, I had finished cutting up the vegetables with only one cut on my hands, and a little hint of blood in the veggies, with also a hint of a burning smell. Once I finished cutting my brother said he’d finish the rest, I was worried, but I didn’t think I could help. Then I heard the door open, and my moms voice

“Boys! What's burning in here!” My mom yelled. I ran into the kitchen. The kitchen was quite smokey.

“Just cooking a steak ma.”

“Well it’s smoking all over the house.” Then she went into the oven and checked on the turkey. “This turkey’s all burnt.” Well my brother had it now.

“Ummmm, I just Wanted to charr it a little bit, it’s allright.”

“What! How is this alright! You—.” Yeah my brother got yelled at.

Well after my brother peeled off the burnt parts of the chicken, and let mom finish the cooking we had our thanksgiving feast. We had pumpkin pie, stuffing, mash potatoes, chips, soda, Turkey, and sweet potatoes. Truly a spread, and if we didn’t finish today we could have thanksgiving all week. The food was good, and somehow the turkey was quite delicious, the charred turkey was quite crispy and juicy, and the chips inside were tasty. I couldn’t really taste the dr.peppa though.