Leanna Kay

May you spend the day gorging on food prepared by someone else.

May your children get all their peas in their mouths rather than stuck up their noses so far only an emergency room doctor can remove it.

May you spend the day listening to the soft sounds of Christmas music rather than your son’s burping rendition of the Twelve Days of Christmas.

May you gorge yourself into such oblivion that even the sounds of three children fighting over one turkey wishbone won’t wake you from your nap.

May there be enough leftovers that when a child claims to be hungry forty minutes after dinner, all you have to do is lazily point to the fridge.

May your children suddenly remember that the Santa spy system is activated on Thanksgiving, thereby requiring them to nix the naughty behavior until December 25^th at 5 a.m.

HAPPY THANKSGIVING!

I hope that God gives special dispensation to mothers when the day of judgment arrives. Considering I’m raising twin boys, I feel like I deserve a couple of free passes for the sometimes rude behavior of my offspring.

Last week, the church had a talent show. Because none of my children are musical, the boys were discussing their various talents to determine which one would be best to suited to a crowded church setting.

“I know,” Drew announced in a tone excited enough that a person would have thought he’d discovered a secret passage to inner Earth. “I can burb the alphabet!”

I opened my mouth to protest, but the kid was on a roll. “Listen Mom.” He got to the letter “d” before I stopped him.

“That’s just stupid, Drew,” Chris piped up. Though I don’t like my children to use the “S” word with each other, after hearing the alphabet in burb language, I let the whole “stupid” comment slide. Chris grinned and added, “What we really should do is fart the alphabet.”

And this is why we didn’t sign up for the talent show. Though it wouldn’t have been the first nor will it be the last time my boys have embarrassed me in church. Just this Sunday, a few members were raising their hands to God during song time. Drew, not quite comprehending the concept, raised his hands as well - only to have them high fived by his brother with an accompanying. “Go God!”

I did squelch the hand slapping before the boys started running around the church high fiving anyone who had their hands in the air. As the song ended, I reminded myself they were just being boys. And at least they weren’t singing in burb language. … Yet.

Bob and I recently signed up for a ten-week session of adult co-ed soccer. Before you begin pondering the extent to which we’ve lost our minds, let me tell you this was supposed to be an over 30 year old non-competitive league. While not everyone on the team needed to reach that landmark birthday, the team average was supposed to fall somewhere in that mark.

When we showed up for our first game, the competition was a team of 18 year olds and a woman I’m guessing was someone’s mom. I’m envisioning the following conversation as this team of youngsters came together.

“Hey, let’s play soccer against a bunch of old people. It’ll be fun watching them wheeze and break hips.”

“Yeah, sounds like a great way to spend the weekend. One problem. We can’t play unless we have an old person on our team.”

“Hey, Dude. What about your mom? She’s really old. Didn’t she turn like 34 last week?”

And thus a team was formed.

As we watched this team take the field, our team of old people came to two conclusions. First we decided next time we’re signing up for the over 80 year old league. We could probably be competitive against a bunch of walker bound geriatrics. Secondly, we decided we had to beat the youngsters and their old mom.

We ignored burning muscles as we sprinted to beat the other team to the ball. We paid no attention to sprains as we dove to block goals. We didn’t listen to our creaking bones as we passed the ball to our team mates. And in the end, we won by one point.

After the game, the other team merrily skipped out of the building no doubt in search of a beer and half priced appetizers. Our team? It took us twenty minutes and the aid of walkers to clear the field. I know there’s a lesson in here somewhere about having the last laugh. But I don’t care. We won against a team of kids half our age. And though we haven’t been able to walk upright for a week, it was worth it.

In Indiana we have a law that liquor can’t be sold on election day. I find it amazing that such a law ever came into being considering some of the politicians that win elections. The only logical explanation is that the majority of voters were highly intoxicated when casting their ballots.

Though I suppose bad politicians would be hard pressed to argue on the senate floor against the liquor law. I..E. - “Gentlemen, we can’t pass a law prohibiting sales of alcohol on election day,” argues one of the bad politicians. “I depend on the drunk vote.”

In theory the drunk voter law is probably meant to prevent people from making stupid choices the whole country may later regret. Or maybe it’s to keep Hoosiers from voting dead people into office like the voters in Missouri once did. In 2000, Missouri elected as their Senator a man who’d actually been dead for three weeks. I’m not saying the dead guy didn’t have a lot of company when he was finally propped into his seat on the Senate floor. But maybe that’s the kind of voting result the Indiana legislature wanted to avoid.

What happens though in some elections where all the choices are bad? When voters can only chose between Bad Choice #1 and Bad Choice #2, what’s the harm in having a little alcohol to dull the pain?

Maybe Hoosier voters would be better served by a new law mandating alcohol be available at all voting sites. I’m not much of a drinker, but I’m thinking on a day like today, a shot of Jack Daniels might be just what I need.