Thanksgiving Grandma's Boycott
“Mama, what do you mean you’re not preparing Thanksgiving dinner?”
“Let me quote Deion Sanders Coach Prime: I did not stutter or stumble. I’m not doing it.”
“What are we supposed to eat? I invited some friends for your to-die-for corn bread.”
“Let them eat pizza.”
This fictional grandmother is on strike because of experience, where family and friends, pseudo family and pseudo friends ignored her at the dinner table because they were glued to their phones. Despite all that, mothers and grandmothers in the U.S. are busy grocery shopping for Thanksgiving. Cellphones are the major problem but ancillary ones include shopping itself.
It’s very complicated now. Somebody who loved peanut butter as a child is now allergic to nuts. Daughters who loved baking when they were young, hate fresh oven bread because of what they call ‘carbs.’ Some grandchildren don’t like bananas and pineapples because agricultural workers in Guatemala are paid slave wages. Then there is food fashion. Mothers and grandmothers drive all over town looking for organic turkeys, but what can they do, family is family and they will prepare Thanksgiving dinner.
Grandma will place serving dishes on the table and reassure Amanda and Andy that yes, the broccoli is organic. No thank you from the twins, another casualty from these gadgets called cellphones. Grandma hides a smile but her eyes are twinkling with mischief. Broccoli came from a province in China. Amanda and Andy don’t know the difference. They’ve never tasted organic broccoli in their whole life.
“Grandma, let me take a Thanksgiving video for Tik Tok.”
“Hell! No.”
Nonqaba waka Msimang
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