Another Russo Thanksgiving

     My Holiday season started off with a bang. A big bang as my pop’s fell off a shopping cart in a parking lot, the day before Thanksgiving and broke his elbow. So you’re wondering how does a fifty something, NYPD Detective manage this amazing feat. Well, I’ll tell ya…

     It all started a couple of weeks before Thanksgiving, when my mom really starts to pressure family about who’s coming to dinner. Nona and mom live for these big holiday feasts. Even though we have them every Sunday, for some reason, she really gets all crazy about the big food fest over the holidays. She started putting pressure on all the relatives, which is most of Jersey, to give her confirmation of doing some sort of drive-by on Thanksgiving. This year my brother and his new wife, (who likes to avoid us especially after the wedding fiasco) is coming for dinner. The newbie's family is getting the hell out of dodge. I think to avoid the Russo’s over the holiday. Mom put the screws to them about Thanksgiving. Something I'm sure they're not use too. I'm fairly certain she scared the hell out of them. So brother can’t imagine him and newbie eating alone. But there was a stipulation, the newbie is a vegetarian, but occasionally will eat meat, but only if it’s organic.  Mom and Pop were so happy newbie agreed to come, they ordered a range feed organic turkey from Pennsylvania. The happiness was short lived about making newbie and brother happy when they saw the price tag. Since those babies aren’t frozen, we had to pick up the expensive sucker the day before Thanksgiving. Which we did, but not without a adventure, of course.

     The day before Thanksgiving Pop’s, I and the grandkids went to the store to pick up the gold plated sucker, who had a privileged life before he met with death and the Russo’s. We got the turkey out of the store without incident, a feat in itself. But that’s where it ends. Pop’s is in the parking lot, showing off to the grandkids by jumping on the back of the shopping cart and riding it down a slight slope in the parking lot, at the kids delight. The cart couldn’t hold Pop’s weight, (he’s a big guy) and it popped a wheelie, throwing Pop’s off the back, he stumbled fell backwards, catching himself on the pavement shattering his elbow.

     It doesn’t end there. The cart shot out from under him like a bullet on a mission towards the street, taking the curve like a pro, with the turkey and Nona’s flour for raviolis with it. It almost looked like the turkey was driving the cart to escape, holding flour and cranberries hostage. It was amazing how high the cart went when it took flight over the curve and bounced off a fire hydrant landing right in front of a oncoming oil truck, and well, committed suicide. The truck t-boned that baby and ran right over the cart. The turkey was decimated in a puff of white from the flour. For a second the truck passed through its own little fog bank thanks to Nona’s future raviolis. And-kept on going, crushing the turkey flat as a pancake, which squished up through the cart. It was pretty nasty, which my nephew proceeded to express when we just had to go and look as the ambulance took Pop’s to the hospital.

      Thanksgiving still happened, sort of. My pop’s had turkey dinner in the hospital after surgery on his elbow, which was better than what the rest of the Russo’s were eating. For the rest of us, including the newbie, we ate out of my cousin's fusion Italian-Mexican food truck he pulled up in front of our house. We had Thanksgiving dinner served through a window in containers. The food was pretty scary. The spaghetti tacos were something of a hit and the cheapest items on the menu. We’ll see what Christmas brings. Maybe Nona will get run over by a reindeer. Now there’s a story.