thanksgiving memories

(please note: the title of my post was neither "tgiving memories" nor "thanxgiving memories." why? because both made you sound like teenybopping-justin bieber loving-training bra wearing tard. please please note: i was once such a human.)

oh thanksgiving, how i love thee. food, drinks, volunteerism! tis the time to be thankful for the bounty of good cheer in your life.

a mere two years ago i found myself being thankful for something in particular - a large industrial sized trash can. the saturday after the last day before thanksgiving break, i journeyed via taxi (no, i didn't have a drivers license at the time) from the hermetical world of college binge drinking to volunteer at a boy scouts food drive a few towns over. although this small town claims to be "central pennsylvania's victorian secret", i believe a more accurate description is post-industrial hellhole (see: all of pittsburgh).

the evening before was, in three words, awesome (for college). shots of vladi, passing out in the parking lot of a long-closed pizza hut, throwing up into a plastic bag...and then...waking up bright and early, pounding a fruit smoothie, and calling the taximan to go stack cans of food for the out of work and chronically food insecure. somewhere during the first 5 minutes of rearranging non-perishables i felt the familiar signs of vomitus expulsiveness bubble up within me: sudden salivation, a burning in the stomach, dreary lightheadedness. i excused myself only to find the restroom occupado.

so while some little boy scout defected to the bathroom to sleep off a late night of call of duty, i was forced to lower my face into the nearest trash can. throughout the morning i returned to that same trash can at least four times, constantly reassuring my fellow volunteers that it was "just a mild stomach virus." (meanwhile, stench of vladi radiated from my person)

throwing up at a food drive? not just totally nadirish, but also blatantly in poor taste. looking back on this sweet, sweet memory i am thankful for a number of things: 1) the obvious knight in shining armour of this story - the trash can - without whom i would have been forced to vomit into a cheery holiday cup on sale in the "Christmas Bazaar" section of the food bank; 2) my friends - who despite allowing me to drink more than i could possibly handle also pick me up at desolated pizza huts in the middle of the night; c) and, lastly, the fact that i liquor drinks and smoothies to throw up at all.