The 2.0somethings crew is gorging on football and food today. While we are gone, check out the best scene of the best Thanksgiving episode of any show ever.
Happy Thanksgiving!! I am personally thankful for everyone who reads and supports this blog (though I think I have thanked all of your personally at this point).
Time for the most special television day of the year: Thanksgiving! Prepare for hundreds of crappily computer animated turkeys waddling across the screen at all times – just like this one! Look at him go, down the field! Rah rah rah!
It’s not that the TV is particularly good or anything today, but it certainly is plentiful and it provides the perfect excuse to stay the hell away from the kitchen, because face it, you’re not qualified for anything besides opening the canned cranberry sauce. After the jump, your full guide to the day’s boob tube festivities.
All over the country, 2.0somethings are heading home via planes, train and automobiles. Hell, right now I am on the boltbus to Boston. There is a good chance that many will get home and after a few hours find themselves needing to escape their parents’ house. Like we mentioned Monday, this often means official or unofficial reunions with your high school friends and sometimes with the majority of your high school class.
My official 5th year reunion is this weekend (Go Minutemen!), so I have been thinking about these encounters quite a bit and I have some tips for dealing with running into and making small talk with people who you are connected with but in all honestly barely know. A lot of these tips also transfer over to meeting extended family.
First Encounters – Your best bet is to match energy levels with whoever you talk to. Are they freaking out and hugging you? Well hug them right back and snap some cell phone camera photos. Are they nodding and asking politely how you are doing? Shake hands then excuse yourself after a few minutes or chit chat. Do this and no one will feel jilted or creeped out. If you misread their enthusiasm level and are greeted with either a look of disappointment or a look that says, “I have mace,” pretend you have to go to the men’s room.
Names – I have problems with names, which is why I always scan facebook quickly before heading to an event I know will feature lots of people who will be expecting me to know their names. You are already friends with everyone who went to your high school (They all friended you in the same week in 2005). Do a quick scan and give yourself a fighting chance of matching names to faces. If by some miracle you not only remember their name, but also their location and profession, pretend you don’t know any of that when you actually see them. That initial conversation eats up an easy 10 minutes. If you still find yourself on the receiving end of a bear hug and an “it’s so great to see you” while having no idea who is giving it, pretend you are getting an important phone call from work.
Conversation – Vagaries and broadness are your friends. We are in our early-mid 20s, all of our jobs suck. Generalizing about it is the best way to sound impressive and not have to go into too many details. You don’t get coffee for a half dozen asshole editors; you are “in the publishing business.” You didn’t drop out of grad school and spend every day for the last three months reading Gawker and FiveThirtyEight; you are “freelancing.”
Bonus: If you did anything for the Obama/McCain campaign — volunteered, donated, voted for, read about that one time — mention that you “did some work for Obama/McCain in [NEAREST SWING STATE].” If played right this is almost as good as a job and you can quickly pivot to other topics. If you are called out on it, pretend you see someone across the room you NEED to talk to right now.
Drinks – Two schools of thought here. One says you should stay sober and reserved, not risking making a total ass of yourself. The other says you should go nuts, why do you still care what these people think? An important factor in your decision should be whether or not there is an open bar. Personally, I am just thankful my sister is finally old enough to pick me up and drive me home.
Bonus: If you want to project camaraderie and that faint “I’m a big shot” aura, buy a round of drinks. But don’t just do it for your close friends; you can’t impress those assholes. Wait by the bar and time it so that your round includes a few kids from as many “cliques” as possible – word of your generosity will spread. Under no circumstances should you buy any other rounds. Also, stay near the bar so that if anyone else tries this you can quickly jump in to get a free drink (knowing their name is not important). If they call you out, pretend you don’t speak English.
Following Up – Inevitably, at least half a dozen people will want to meet up for lunch the next day, “totally come crash with you next weekend” or plan on sending you their resume/mixtape. Be nonspecific. Catching up is a great idea, but MAN are you slammed at work. You will totally forward this to the HR person at your office, but they are kind of a flake so it is hard to say when you will hear anything. If you are cornered, fake a seizure.
Thanksgiving week is upon us, and for many 2.0somethings that means a bus or train ticket home and a weekend on the couch. It also inevitably means that there will be some kind of reunion, faux or official, with your high school classmates. We will be posting a guide to surviving that reunion tomorrow or the next day (along with a few other holiday tips). Until then (and while I am still in work) I will let the Onion do my entertaining for me:
NEW YORK—For the fifth straight year, Jordan McCabe will return home for the holidays and spend the night before Thanksgiving running into every smug and unlikable asshole he ever went to high school with, the 26-year-old reported Monday.
The trip back home, scheduled for later this week, will reportedly bring McCabe face-to-face with an endless string of pricks from his past, each of whom he will have to engage in awkward conversation, and generally pretend to be happy about seeing again.
“They’re all going to be there,” said McCabe, purchasing an Amtrak train ticket for Rochester, NY. “Every last one of them, just as shitty and conceited and phony as ever.”
“I can’t believe I’m going to see all those assholes again,” McCabe continued.