Home for the holidays

I don’t know about your Turkey Day, but mine was crunk asfunk. This year, Cousin Davy was in charge of cooking dinner. Theresult of a guy with a hangover making dinner: all meat and nogreens. It was quite good, actually.

I called home over the break, and I got this “We’resorry. The number you have dialed is no longer in service”message. I thought maybe that was my family’s way of tellingme I’m out of the family. No such luck, because once adysfunctional Truong, always a dysfunctional Truong. They simplychanged the number and forgot to mention it to me.

Everyone has his fair share of dysfunctional families, and whatbetter time than this to give thanks? “Thank thee, oh Lord,for giving me the screwballs that make up my family.” Whenyou bring that many crazy people who hate each other togetheraround the dinner table, where knives, forks and other sharpobjects are laying around, you’re asking for some baby mamadrama. The tension is so thick, you could carve it like a turkey.Sometimes you wish you could say, “Cancel my subscription,‘cause I don’t want any more issues.”Unfortunately, life doesn’t quite work that way.

Every family gathering such as this has one common component.There is always some shocking news that everyone has heard of butis not allowed to speak of. So before the extended family arrives,your mother preps you and makes sure that no one says anythingpertaining to the news or anything that could lead to a dinnertable discussion of it. There is an actual list of forbiddenconversation topics. Someone in the family is getting a divorce,having an affair, having a “life-changing operation” orsome other form of drama. Everyone pretends to play stupid, buteveryone knows. And while everyone pretends to be interested in thediscussion over political issues, everyone is really thinking aboutthe gossip. You’re sitting there thinking this is silly. Youcan play dumb for only so long because sooner or later you’regoing to have to acknowledge that Uncle Tommy is now AuntTammy.

My father finally sat me down and gave me the inevitable talk.You know, the what-are-you-going-to-do-with-the-rest-of-your-lifetalk, which is probably second only to the sex talk.

Well, okay, I never got that talk. I learned about sex through aStephen King novel. That’s probably where I went wrong. Thatprobably explains a lot of things. My parents are prettytraditional Asian folk and giving the sex talk just isn’t anAsian thing to do. But when it has to do with education and money,Asian parents take it very seriously.

Every upperclassman gets this talk, and it generally goessomething like this:

“So what are you going to do after you graduate? Wait.You’re not moving back home, are you? Okay, good. Justchecking.”

It’s nice to feel wanted.

“So what exactly do you plan on doing with your degreeagain?”

That’s a nice way of asking, “What kind of job canyou land with that worthless degree?”

“So you are aware that we expect you to pay us back foryears of raising you, right? That’s 21 years of food,clothes, school tuition and other miscellaneous expenses. Thatcomes out to $10,134,265.38, but we’ve rounded down to$10,000,000 to make things easier.”

Lord Almighty! Are you sure you didn’t round up?

“So when do you estimate you will be able to pay us back?If necessary, we can work out a payment plan. Here’s whatwe’ll do. You have a six-month grace period. After that,we’re going to have to charge interest. Compounding, notsimple.”

Are you kidding me?

It was funny how every question and the start of each new topicbegan with “So.” I started getting these flashbacks ofhigh school.

“So where do you plan on going for college?”

“So you want a car, huh? I guess that means you want ajob, too.”

“So are you starting to date now?”

“So when are you moving out?”

“So are you doing any illegal drugs?”

That was high school. With college came a whole new set ofquestions.

Turkey, football and more turkey — it’s all gravy.That’s all you need to live the good life.

But all good things must come to an end. The turkey is gone. Thegame is over. You must come back to school for a few more daysbefore finals begin. Welcome to Hellville. Population: you.