Aunt Toogie’s Theory of Relativity


***image1***My lovely wife, Grace, and I recently finished cleaning behind our troupe of Thanksgiving visitors. The word "behind" connotes an image of a circus employee, shovel in hand, who follows an elephant, and the analogy isn’t too far off the mark. Grace laundered linens, washed and repacked the good dishes, then dusted, vacuumed, or mopped all horizontal, and more than a few vertical, surfaces in the house. I was relegated to cleaning up "the outside," in other words, removing the residue from the turkey fryer fire (or "far" according to Cousin Ronnie). I tried to explain it was mostly Cousin Ronnie and Cousin Woody’s fault, but Grace cut me no slack. So, I disposed of the fryer, repainted the singed side of the garage (Grace says it was scorched, but it was really only singed), and pruned or replaced the foliage that didn’t fare too well in the fire.

One evening as we neared the end of scrubbing, swabbing, and scouring, Grace mused, "Why do we always have to have such a crowd at our house?"

"We’ve always had the extended family for Thanksgiving," I replied.

"I know they are family," Grace sighed. "But, we see some of them only once a year."

"Which is once too many for some of those cousins," interjected Aunt Toogie.

Grace and I turned, a little stunned, toward Toogie.

"You kids need to adopt the tradition your Uncle Harold and I did some years ago."

Grace and I were silent, so Toogie continued her explanation.

"Every Thanksgiving, we used to pack up, leave before dawn, drive all the way to Birmingham to see Harold’s family, and then drive back a day or so later. The trip was brutal. Invariably, we’d get stuck behind some old people driving fifty miles an hour in the left lane of the interstate. You know the ones I’m talking about. Approaching from the rear, only the headrests are visible. Harold used to call them ‘no see ums.’ But the biggest challenge was his kin. They were the craziest conglomeration this side of the kook house. Yet we went, year after year. On one return trip home, I asked Harold why he liked going every year. He nearly ran off the road, and after steadying the car, told me he thought we went because I wanted to! Driving past a sea of headlights flowing in the opposite direction must have given Harold an idea. When the next Thanksgiving approached, he put an ad in the Birmingham paper asking if anyone had relatives near our town in North Carolina."

"He didn’t!" Grace exclaimed.

"Oh, yes. He theorized we could surely get along with strangers as well as we did with his family flock. The ad produced several replies. He picked one family and we agreed to swap relatives."

"Swap?" I asked, leaning forward.

"We agreed to invite their relatives over for Thanksgiving if they would fill in for us there in Birmingham."

"You didn’t!" Grace gasped.

"You bet we did," Toogie continued. "Plus, we saved time, expense, and the torment of traffic by not being with the Birmingham brood."

"What happened there?" I inquired, leaning in still closer.

"In Birmingham? Never did hear again from the people who agreed to go in our place."

"He means with Harold’s family," Grace clarified.

"Oh, they still sent cards at birthdays and Christmas, but that’s a far cry from having to eat green bean casserole with onion rings on top and hear those same old stories year after year."

"Amazing," I declared.
"What about the pseudo-relatives in your home town?"

"Oh, Bertha and Tom. We got to know them real well. Nice folks. We shared Thanksgiving with them for years. Boy, could she cook. Made turkey and fixings that would make Marie Callender drool. We even went to Branson with them once."

"Amazing!" I restated.

That night, as Grace and I read in bed, I turned and said, "What an amazing story Aunt Toogie told."

"Yep," Grace responded, without looking up from her book.

"I mean, swapping relatives and all. Amazing, truly amazing."

"Yep."

"I suppose we could consider it," I pondered. "But, it may be difficult to find people to take our place in the all the cities where our relatives live…"

"I have an easier solution," Grace replied.

She reached into the drawer of her nightstand and pulled out a brochure. "It’s a cruise," she declared. "Sails during Thanksgiving week next year. Plus, there is a deep discount if booked early. What do you think?"

"Well, it’s an idea. I guess so," I muttered.

"Oh, you are a dear, Dalton," Grace gushed. "I’ll call the travel agent tomorrow."

The next day, as I was refilling my coffee cup before painting the final coat of trim on the garage, I could hear Grace and Toogie talking about the previous evening’s conversation. They must have thought I was still outside.

I heard Toogie ask, "Did he bite on the cruise?"

"Yep," Grace gushed, "just like he did on your Thanksgiving tale."

"Amazing," cackled Toogie.

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