Not Drinking on Thanksgiving
The most incredible thing happened to me today. This is Thanksgiving in America, a holiday which is taken very seriously in New England, perhaps too seriously. We have no children living near us and so we decided to have Thanksgiving dinner at a local church my wife attends from time to time. Things went well and I happened to be sitting opposite a woman who asked me whether I was a Christian. Half humorously I replied that I was “working on it”. “That’s not good enough!” she replied, “It looks like you don’t have long to do that”. So I said that my belief was that there were many possible paths to salvation and that I saw some good in a number of different religions and beliefs. I specifically mentioned the Dalai Lama. She said that she respected him for his beliefs but didn’t agree with his approach. Well I thought that that settled the theological part of the discussion for awhile.
After everyone got their food and I was sampling the stuffing and a little ham she asked me what I was doing for my wife, how I was helping her. Now I may not be the greatest of husbands but I do wash more than half of the dishes (she gets her part done by helpers who come in daily), I take out the garbage, do all the grocery shopping that doesn’t get delivered, drive her to the doctors (she doesn’t drive), feed the dog, pay the bills. She doesn't like it here all winter. Says it's too cold. So I've offered to take her to California for two weeks to see her sisters or maybe even a two week cruise to the Caribbean.
So anyway, again I tried to respond a little humorously and said that Lincoln said a pretty good thing, I thought. He said, “I tried to do the best I knew how.”
With that this strange woman looked at me and said, “You’re a pig headed person who thinks only of himself and doesn’t love his wife.”
I looked at her, put down my knife and fork, walked out to the car and drove home. Was I wrong to leave? Did I overreact? Maybe that’’s not important. The important thing is that I didn’t drink over it and I’m not going to do that. When I got home I was shaking all over and took a beta blocker pill since I’ve had heart trouble. That’s what my doctor told me to do when I felt that way.
W.