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“Oh no — no no NO,” said my husband from his makeshift dining table desk last Thursday morning.
“Oh my God what is it?” I said. It’s been a year of learning to brace for terrible news. We’ve lost family and friends to COVID. We’ve spent months in our one-bedroom apartment doing hundreds of hours of online therapy for our autistic son. We’ve woken up to tragic and terrifying national news dozens of times. Then a month ago I sprained my ankle so badly that my husband had to do 100% of the driving, child-chasing, cooking, carrying, and anything that required standing up. He was overworked and exhausted, and now he’d received news of the latest horror to befall us.
“Our Thanksgiving dinner is ready,” he said. “Right now. I ordered it on the wrong day. It’s ready for pickup in an hour.”
His head was in his hands. He’d ordered a heat-and-eat Thanksgiving feast for us from our local grocery store and just clicked on “Thursday” without paying attention to the date. “Why would they let anyone order a full Thanksgiving dinner THIS Thursday? I obviously meant next week! I’m calling them!”
There was no answer. I thought about it for five seconds or so and responded “This is the greatest mistake you’ve ever made.”
He was still upset. “But we’ve got our meal kit coming tonight and I just went grocery shopping. What are we going to do with all this food?”
“You’ve known me for 20 years,” I said…