I got invited to Jim’s brother’s house for thanksgiving. We got there a little late and pretty much as soon as we walked in the door, his brother was handing me a giant fork and a craving knife – and aiming me at the turkey.

Now, I don’t know if this was some kind of Guest of Honor thing or if I’ve somehow convinced his brother that I know everything, but putting me in charge of carving the turkey is a terrible, terrible idea. My knowledge was limited to about a 30 second video of a professional chef that I watched two days ago. Also, I like my fruits and veggies raw and meats heavily processed. I know, intellectually, that turkey doesn’t start as thinly sliced deli meat, but I’m just not equipped to carve it myself.

At least I didn’t have to kill it.

So, I dug in there and started working over that turkey. To my astonishment, I sort of got the job done. There was turkey to eat along with the rest of the side dishes and no one went away hungry or complained about my ineptitude. Huh.
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After lunch, Jim’s nephew wanted my help in installing mods for Minecraft. These are independently written programs that extend the gameplay of the core game and can do things like add in more textures to the blocks or new gear and weapons. It took a little bit, but I figured out what files we needed and where they needed to go. It worked and he was super excited.

On the one hand, it was pretty cool to figure out how it all worked and get things going – and he was, as I mentioned, super excited. And I mean SUPER EXCITED!!!!!!

On the other… teaching a Minecraft addict how to install mods is a lot like saying to cocaine addict, “Hey, have you considered trying crack?”

He spent much of the rest of the afternoon blowing up villagers with a 5 story tall mecha-suit. His sister and I played card games – my experience with the games was a pretty even match for her ruthlessness.

She’s 10.

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Jim decided that he wanted to go to Home Depot today for Black Friday to get a couple of mirrors for his living room. I figured I would go along since I wanted to pick up a couple of….wait….

Why is so dang cold in here? I’m sorry, but I just realized that my thermostat knows it’s Friday and I should be at work right now. BRB…

…anyway… Right – extension cords.

We figured, “It’s Home Depot – how bad could it be?”

Sigh.

The line waiting to get in was stretched the length of the building. We got there just before 6 and went to the back of the line and waited a few minutes before we were led – like cattle, perhaps – into the welcoming arms of commercialism and home improvement.

There were clerks at the door who provided wildly vague or inaccurate directions to anyone that asked. And despite them, we eventually found the mirrors. Jim picked out two and stayed put while I went after cords. We met up and went through the self check-out with very little delay.

I guess I expected the worst, but it’s a huge store and once people got inside they just kinda spread out. No fist fights over 50% off grills or throw-downs in kitchen tile.

Kinda anti-climactic, actually.