If only other families could swap insults with impunity the way mine does, there would be no petty or protracted estrangements and Jerry Springer would never have had a successful show. While we looked forward to Thanksgiving that year, we all were a little apprehensive as well. It was the first one without my dad. Before we all got to my mother’s house, my sister e-mailed me and my brother to say, “I’m looking forward to y’all getting on my nerves this weekend.”
The year was 2006. Picture seven adults, six kids, and a few dogs cooped-up in a three-bedroom, two-bath farmhouse the size of a double-wide. (Well, it may technically be a double-wide, but it’s so well-disguised that my dad always joked that a tornado could never find it.) It’s probably the only 20-plus-year-old pre-fab dwelling with hardwood floors and ceramic tile. The Winnebago-style Fiberglas showers have yet to be upgraded to imported Venetian marble, however. I say “cooped-up” because I am a spoiled upper-middle-class American brat. A lot of families in this world probably happily sleep that many in one room. In fact, my Russian sister-in-law told me she felt right at home with so many people in what seemed like such a small space.