Reflections on a Thanksgiving Past

I’m going to begin by taking a bit of a punt and say that very few of you have ever murdered anyone.

I could be wrong of course, for all I know the country could be positively teeming with mass murderers but for want of better knowledge I’m forced to go with the statistics that tell us that most of us are averse to frenzied violence.

That is actual violence of course because I’m willing to bet that deep in your hearts most of you at some time has sworn death upon another and committed mayhem in your deepest, darkest thoughts. Tellingly, it’s usually triggered by an event that many would consider minor, generally some swine stealing our parking spot or pushing into the line at Starbucks. For all the simmering rage few of you carry through with the temptation, weakened in your resolve by the mores of a society which for some reason or other frowns upon that sort of thing. Unhappily or otherwise those restraints are beginning to break down as we are daily pushed beyond our limits by the stresses of modern society. Good luck.

Now, I know what you’re thinking. Most of you at least. You’re thinking that you’ve stumbled upon a sociopath who’s about to confess to slaughtering innocents in back alleys, but you’d be wrong. Like you I swallow the disrespect shown by inconsiderate slobs and impotently fulminate for a while, usually uttering vile imprecations before mentally writing it off as one of the prices we have to pay for living in what passes for an ordered world. Most of the time at least, I mean there are limits. No, you may be surprised to learn that what triggers my urge to do real harm to others is not slights as in the case in point but joy.

How I came to suffer my condition is a mystery although it may have come about as a result of having been raised by not one but two sufferers of the condition, to wit, my parents. Both of them had been raised in the strict Edwardian tradition of always knowing one’s place and never expressing emotion so it’s fair to assume they didn’t have much of a chance from day one.

My father in particular avoided any situations where there may be even the slightest chance of exuberance breaking out whilst my mother preferred to spend her time polishing floors and scrubbing out the oven whenever the likelihood of unbounded happiness might arise. For me it may have been a miserable childhood, but we had the cleanest house in the neighbourhood if not the country and the floors were slippery enough that I could slide the entire length of the hallway. I suppose there’s an upside to most things if you look hard enough.

I’ll enlighten those of you who missed out on ancient Greek by informing you that the name of my condition is ‘cherophobia’ coming from the verb ‘to rejoice.’  It’s easy to remember if you think of the ‘cher’ bit being ‘cheer,’ although why you’d want to is anyone’s guess. In some ways though, to call it a phobia, meaning as we all know, a fear of something, gives a distorted impression, at least in my case. What is probably more correct is to say that it means an inability to cope with expressions of happiness, particularly in group situations. A situation such as…oh, let’s say, Thanksgiving.

Luckily for me it’s almost axiomatic that group gatherings almost invariably end in absolute misery. Whoever first said that three’s a crowd really knew what he was talking about and there have been a multitude of sayings since expressing doubt on the ability of congregations exceeding two to get along, and let’s face it, even two can sometimes be stretching a point.

Ironically, my happiest memories of Christmas and Thanksgiving festivities (for want of a better word) are those that ended in mayhem and the temporary social exclusion of at least one member of the group. I have found over the years that if I put my mind into neutral, ignore the drunken calumnies and occasional misguided groping that it all passes without much lasting psychological harm. What does tear a hole in my mental nightshirt however is when things go wrong and everyone is happy, because that not only depresses me it makes me seriously irritated. Unhappily for others that has sometimes been the sort of irritation that can lead me to forget myself.

It was the Thanksgiving of 2019 when I was most sorely tested. I’d been invited by my daughter and her husband to attend their family get together and I had high hopes of at least a seriously ennui inducing afternoon. To be frank my son in law is about as humorous and interesting as a modern dance recital and his parents could be categorised as dull by a convention of Calvinist ministers. A delightfully joyless meal was in the offing and I was pleased to accept the invitation even though I loathed the lot of them, my daughter excluded. There may be some by the way who wonder if I’m so averse to joy in all its forms how I ever ended up wed. Look around you is all I say to that.

No doubt you’ll not be surprised when I confide that I was both shocked and appalled when my daughter’s door was opened by a man I’d not previously met who was laughing uproariously to the accompaniment of what passed for unbridled mirth from the assembled guests. I was to learn that this was my son in law’s ne’er do well younger brother, a typical example of Freud’s observation that younger brothers tend to be the family rebel and everyone else’s pain in the rear end. With the rest of his family’s lack of zest he may have been survivable had he not managed to inveigle an invitation for his drinking buddies, all of whom were of the six pack before dinner, back slapping and practical joking variety, that latter form of amusement being one of the most repellent known to man. At least to this man.

I was soon to learn that much of the hilarity was being directed towards grandpa whose false teeth kept slipping when in his cups and sometimes into his cup. For some reason the yobs thought this to be hilarious and grandpa was just shickered enough that he’d decided to play along by clacking his dentures about in the vilest manner imaginable. That said if you’ve never previously imagined anything similar I urge you not to.

Fate is never kind to me and thus it was that I was seated directly across from the unedifying spectacle of flying food and choppers emanating from an eighty-year-old dipso. I’m not sure whether the worst of it was when the teeth were in and slipping about or when he was playfully removing them and putting them into his beer glass or clamping them on the turkey’s parson’s nose.

As I’ve made it abundantly clear so far, I’m not one given over to expressions of joy or mirth but I was and still am unable to credit that anyone, whatever their predisposition, could find the fatuous display anything but appalling at best. In my case, I found it both stomach churning and intensely irritating. Nevertheless I clenched everything clenchable (modesty forbids me saying more) and did my best to hope that the bunch of yobs led by brother number two would soon tire of their japes. Unhappily that was not to be because grandpa was revelling in his having a dedicated audience for the first time in ages and was playing things for all they were worth. I suppose he realised that turning on the same stunt at his retirement castle would be ultimately futile considering the amount of competition.

I really did my best to avoid giving in to what was my rising ire. I looked away to engage others in conversation as often as was decent by the norms of polite behaviour. I ignored the pounding on my shoulders by the revellers, even managed a sickly grin in their direction. When things became too tough I feigned a stomach upset and locked myself in the bathroom for as long as decency permitted, although later events proved that I’d misjudged that woefully. I dallied over making myself elaborate cocktails and even collared my son in law in the kitchen and sought to engage him in the topic of accounting principles, his favourite conversational exercise. Alas, it was to no avail and time and again I was led back to the table and those dancing dentures.

Grandpa kept it up even after the roars of mirth had finally subsided to chuckles. Realising that he was losing everyone’s attention grandpa made one final play to regain his status. He removed his teeth when I wasn’t looking, leaned across the table and pretended they were eating my meal while he emitted the most appalling gobbling noises. Everyone but me thought it hilarious and even I had to offer up a smile to indicate what a sport I was. What was now an almost obligatory visit to the bathroom backfired when I was greeted upon my return by jests both scatological and lewd in nature being hurled in my direction. To grandpa’s chagrin I was now the centre of attention and please believe me when I say that while I find general amusement irritating, amusement directed at me puts me into a homicidal rage.

Oscar Wilde summed it up best when he said that the only way to rid oneself of a temptation is to yield to it. I’m sure if you think about it long enough you’ll see that it makes a lot of sense. In this case the temptation was to do away with the root cause of my agitation and that was grandpa. There may be some who would have opted for the yob in chief as leader of the yuck fest but in my book grandpa had not only egged them on, but he had also demeaned himself in the process. He needed to be got rid of.

You may think that to murder someone in the midst of Thanksgiving is a difficult task and most times you’d be correct, although I’m sure that Agatha Christie would have found any number of ways, some of them no doubt featuring a letter opener. In this particular case it proved to be dead easy if you’ll forgive me my little joke. Grandpa had followed me into the kitchen, drunkenly intent on following up his assault on my meal. I was still managing to just hold things together but when he removed his dentures and opened that crumb filled, red, gaping maw I succumbed to my baser instincts. Fortunately or otherwise there was a large bowl of turkey stuffing nearby and it was but the work of an instant to shove a generous handful down his throat. After he’d choked I screamed the house down while pretending to be attempting to revive him. The mood from then on was delightfully sombre as I described time and again my failed and desperate attempts at the Heimlich manoeuvre. I think I even managed a sob or two.

As you might expect his death was written off as a result of one of those tragic but inevitable Thanksgiving acts of gluttony. The dentures lodged in his throat raised a few eyebrows amongst the authorities but only until his lunchtime hijinks were explained.

So there you have it. I’m sure you’ll agree that I did admirably in fighting back against my baser instincts and that while I may have eventually succumbed I did everything in my power to resist. I can hardly be blamed if I was pushed to breaking point.

I’m really rather pleased with myself and perhaps perversely delighted that I was challenged in the way that I was. I’m now firmly convinced that it made me a better person in that I showed that I was able to resist my forgivable urges in the face of intolerable provocation. At least up to a point. That point being the moment that murder becomes necessary rather than just desired.

If proof were needed of my reform, I can honestly say that since that Thanksgiving I’ve hardly murdered anyone else.