It looks like Thanksgiving may have to be canceled this year. I don’t like it anymore than anyone else, but that’s just the way it works sometimes.

So far, I already know that I have work that has to be done on Friday and Saturday for the following week’s newspaper anyway, so I likely won’t know the difference. At least I still have Thursday to do as I wish — or at least to finish painting the big living room.

The family had planned a big dinner and such, but have now decided not to have it since my father remains in the hospital. While there, he has contracted an antibiotic-resistant staphylococcus bacteria infection that is becoming more and more common.

After that was discovered, it was determined that he needed a total of 14 days of antibiotics to get over that, which puts him in the hospital until the Saturday after Thanksgiving. He’s been in there so often and so long he may soon have his name on the door. They offered to place him in a nursing home while the antibiotics were administered, but he didn’t want that. There’s nothing wrong with nursing homes, but he likely figured he might get the bum’s rush at the hospital. In fact, we all want him evicted soon.

As I was saying, the family has decided to cancel the dead bird for a few days to give him time to get home. After all, it isn’t Thanksgiving without the family patriarch. Who would lead the prayer? Who would be there to enjoy all of our company (who else could enjoy all of our company, for that matter)?

Thanksgiving without Dad would be like Christmas without baby Jesus or Halloween without pumpkins, it just wouldn’t make sense. We’d have to call it X-giving.

Not that we don’t have much to be thankful for, it’s just that Thanksgiving is a time for the whole family to gather. So long as we’re all alive, it doesn’t seem right to hold a family gathering without the whole family.

I was glad in a secret sort of way, since it will grant me a casserole reprieve for a few more days. I remember writing last year that quiches and casseroles were my least favorite things, noting that they were the equivalent of taking perfectly edible ingredients and producing something not fit to eat. A family member later told me that the column seemed mean-spirited. Of course, it might have had something to do with the fact that his wife soon after produced a casserole at the Thanksgiving meal. Oops.

I can eat sweet potato casserole, which she makes, but that’s because it is just sweet potatoes and marshmallows. That’s hardly the same as some strange concoction in a baking dish containing spinach and cheese that makes small children (and me) run screaming and have bad dreams. Just to add to the problem, I’m not a turkey fan either. Give me a chicken or a ham any day. I eat turkey a couple of times a year, just for variety, but it isn’t something to which I really look forward. I just cover it with that brown gravy and figure it might be moist enough to choke down after it soaks it up waiting until last to be eaten on my little segmented Styrofoam plate. Since the turkey might be fried this year, I’m hoping it is better than the baked versions to which I am referring.

As for the Styrofoam, we gave up real dishes a few years ago after my mother announced that they were too hard to wash after a big meal like that. Why, the poor little dishwasher almost had a heart attack a few years back. Not that I cared, I was pretending to watch someone beat the Detroit Lions in the football game while ‘resting my eyes’ in the recliner with my stomach sticking out like a malnourished Ethiopian.

However, I was hardly malnourished after eating a 10,000-calorie meal, complete with pie, cake and ice cream. Oh, and don’t forget the whipped topping. Those whipped topping people must live for Thanksgiving. I know I’ve never bought any whipped topping, but I do eat it on the pumpkin pies someone always seems to bring every year. I like to think they’re brought for me, since pumpkin is one of my favorites. Whoever does that might read this, so I hope they go the extra mile this year and make one homemade instead of the box variety. Maybe I’d make one myself, if only I could make it turn out tastier than the ones in the box. My last effort, an apple pie, wasn’t all that successful. I had thought it was going well until the apple stuff caught on fire in the bottom of the oven and set off the smoke alarms, leading me to open all the doors and windows and be permanently scarred with an apple-shaped burn while dashing out the door with the remnants of the pie in hand.

It might have been better had I been more dressed, given the fact that it was somewhere between arctic and freezing outside. After cleaning out the oven, I opted, wisely I think, to not attempt to make more pies. Oh well, the family will miss the traditional day for the biggest meal of the year, but that really doesn’t matter. It’s just another Thursday. It’s sort of like birthdays. They’re just another day, unless you place some special meaning on celebrating the anniversary of the date of your birth. Even so, if it really was a special time when each of us were born, wouldn’t we keep up with it down to at least the hour? That would really mess me up, since I was born at night. “Wake up family, it’s 3 a.m. Time to eat cake!” I don’t see that going over so well.

So long as we’re able to gather later and have some time to be thankful with our family, I’m sure everyone will be well pleased. In the meantime, maybe I can stay home and try out some Thanksgiving ribs, steaks or chicken — anything but turkey.

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