A Looney Thanksgiving

“Don’t worry honey, it will be fine. They’ll love you.”

Famous last words from Jennifer as we walked up to her parents’ front door. It wasn’t bad enough that I’d convinced her to drop out of college to work with me on my app. I’d also convinced her to elope to Vegas just two months ago. I’d never even met these people, much less spoken to them and here I was, their little girl in hand along with a basket of apologies and a bottle of supermarket wine. The only way it could have been any worse was if she was pregnant. She was not.

“Jennifer!” The woman, I assumed her mother, sucked my wife into her arms and embraced her so tightly I feared she might pop. They hugged for a moment, ear to ear. I could see a tear or two trace down her mother’s cheek.

“And you must be Johnathan.” She politely extended a hand and I shook it. It felt cold and soft, like a defrosted dinner roll that had just begun to proof. “Yes ma’am. It’s nice to meet you.”

“Well, come in out of the cold you two.”

It was Thanksgiving in the suburbs of Cleveland, so cold was an understatement. For a southern California boy, anything below 50 required a fur-lined parka and a dog team. A light dusting of snow the night before provided a crisp covering to the shrubs and lawn. Inside, it wasn’t much warmer. We followed the mother into the living room where I met the father, the aunt, the uncle and the nephew. The nephew was busy staring into his phone. The others occupied themselves staring at me.

Jennifer and I sat on the hearth, warming ourselves from the chill. The father broke the ice.

“So. Jonas, is it?”

“Johnathan, sir.”

“Johnathan. Do you go by John?”

“I prefer Johnathan.”

“He prefers Johnathan,” the father muttered. “Did you also prefer Jennifer to drop out of school? Did you prefer to rob myself and her mother of the joy of seeing her walk down the aisle?”

“Daddy, stop.”

Yes daddy, please stop. Not because you are wrong, but because you are right. What the hell was I thinking? Just because Jennifer is the best coder I’ve ever met and because she is beautiful and funny and laughed at my stupid jokes, I may have just ruined her life. She could have gotten her degree and gone on to work at Microsoft or Apple or any of a hundred other top companies. Instead she was helping me develop an app for boomers to check their tweets before offending people born in this century. It’s working title was “OK Boomer.” That was not set in stone. What was a certainty was I might have screwed the proverbial pooch when it came to what was best for Jennifer.

My stomach rumbled at the thought. Or maybe I was hungry. Guilt and starvation affect me the same way.

“Okay everyone, dinner is on!” The mother announced the meal as if it were the main event in Madison Square Garden. The cold front moved to the dining room where I waited to sit where I was told. That seat was between my wife and her uncle, a little round bald man who smelled more than a bit like alcohol and Old Spice. There may have been a hint of pumpkin as well.

“You keep your eyes on your own plate,” he joked. At least I think he was joking. The mother offered grace. I stared at my plate as she thanked the Lord for providing this bounty and for getting Jennifer safely home. She didn’t add “where we can talk her into getting an annulment,” but I could read it in her eyes.

The uncle filled his plate with roast beef, mashed potatoes and carrots. The blood from the beef formed a river in his potatoes. It was disgusting, but it didn’t stop him from loading up a fork and shoveling it in. There was room left for two rolls, so he took four. I attempted to remain true to my vegetarian ways on the downlow, simply passing the beef platter along. The uncle noticed.

“What, you don’t eat meat?”

“No. I’m a vegetarian.”

 “A vegetarian? Great.” The father found himself more impressed with me by the minute. “Are you a vegetarian too?” he asked Jennifer.

Jennifer just had a pile of carrots on her plate. “No daddy, I’m a vegan. No animal should suffer when there are plenty of edible plants in the world.”

“Oh, for fudge sake,” the father said. “Is this the same girl who once ate three hot dogs at an Indians game?”

“People CHANGE daddy!”

“Language!” the mother wasn’t having it.

There was no more language for a while. The family concentrated on the food. I enjoyed my plate. Jennifer picked at hers. Uncle had seconds and then thirds and the father made more than one trip to the bar to refill his bourbon. The aunt and mother sat quietly, and the nephew had a few bites in between his game playing.

The ice thickened by the minute. I decided to break it.

“What you playing?”

The nephew didn’t look up. “Answer him,” the aunt ordered.

“Looney Tunes.” His eyes remained locked on the screen.

“Looney Tunes?” I didn’t know there was a Looney Tunes video game. Realizing I only thought that to myself, I spoke up. “I didn’t know there was a Looney Tunes video game. Who’s in it?”

“Duh. Everyone.”

“Oh man, I love Looney Tunes. Marvin Martian’s my favorite.”

The father stopped drowning his sorrows for a moment. “You’re too young to know about Looney Tunes,” he said. “I grew up with them.”

I told him my father was a huge fan and that he bought the entire collection on DVD. “We’d spend hours every weekend just going through them all.”

“Who’s the hunter?” He was testing my knowledge.

“Seriously? Everyone knows Elmer Fudd. Kiww da wabbit, kiww da wabbit…”

The game was on. We threw Looney Tunes trivia back and forth like a Nerf football, just waiting for the other to let one slip through his fingers.

“Marvin’s dog’s name?”

“K-9. Who voiced most of the characters?”

“Mel Blanc. What was the name of the chicken hawk who was always trying to kill Foghorn Leghorn?”

Okay, that’s a tough one. “I’m a chicken hawk and you’re a chicken” was his catch phrase. But did he have a name? Did they ever say his name? Tweety? No, idiot! Oh, crap. I have no idea.

“Give up?”

I nodded.

“Henery. Henery Hawk. Like that Herman’s Hermit song?”

I drew a blank. Herman’s Hermits sang about the chicken hawk?

“I’m Henery the eighth I am…” The father was in fine voice. The bourbon was kicking in.

“All right,” I said. “What was Porky Pig’s entire name?” In the pantheon of Looney Tunes Trivia, that was the golden chalice, the Hope Diamond, the Babe Ruth and even the Taylor Swift. No one in the history of Looney Tunes Trivia EVER knew Porky Pig’s entire name.

The father was sweating.

“Give up?”

“No, no I got this.” I sat back with a satisfied smile. You got poop daddy. You got squat. You got…

“Porky Cornelius Washington Otis Lincoln Abner Aloysius Casper Jefferson Philbert Horatius Narcissus Pig.”

You got it right. My mouth and several other orifices were agape. He slurred on Aloysius, but I had to give it to him. Jennifer’s old man knew his Merrie Melodies. Th-th-th-th-that’s all, folks.

We finished dinner and took the conversation and our pie into the garage, where daddy kept an old couch, a duct-taped recliner, a big screen TV and a refrigerator stocked with Rolling Rocks. He also had a DVD player and an impressive Looney Tunes collection.

“Oh my god, you have ‘What’s Opera Doc?’ Put it in. Please, put it in.”

Daddy put in the disc and we sang along to Wagner’s music as Elmer poked his spear in Bugs Bunny’s hole. “Kiww the wabbit! Kiww the wabbit! Kiww the wabbit!” Later, as Elmer carries off a deceased bunny, Bugs looks up and in his inimitable smart-assed way, said “Well, what did you expect in an opera? A happy ending?”

We watched a few more episodes and drank some more beers until Daddy passed out in his recliner. I covered him with a quilt and met Jennifer in the house. Round uncle was passed out with his pants button undone on the sofa. The nephew was in the hall bathroom making noises. Mom and aunt were doing tequila shots, sucking limes and playing “Marry, Boink, Kill.” The aunt was struggling with the choices of James Corden, Mr. Rogers and Tom Hanks. “Can I just break a leg, or do I have to kill one of them?” she whined.

“It’s called Marry, Boink, KILL Denise!” I saw a side of the mother I hadn’t seen before. The aunt decided to kill James Corden and marry Mr. Rogers. Tom Hanks wins again. We couldn’t disagree with any of that, so we said our goodbyes.

Jennifer and I hugged the mother and then stepped out in the cold where my new wife slugged me right in the gut.

“You don’t know Henery was the chicken hawk’s name?” I recoiled in fear of another slug. “Everyone knows that! Embarassing!”

We got in the rental and I drove to the airport Sheraton before our flight home the next morning, more confident than ever that we belonged together.