A SPATIAL THANKSGIVING

A SPATIAL THANKSGIVING!

A Short Fiction

Around Thanksgiving

By

David A. Archer

02/15/1968

11/09/2006

I have heard countless accounts of Thanksgiving. Most quite predictably from friends speaking of it as if it were an affliction. I have even been to a few of those functions, and I have to say that I do sympathize with them to some degree.

I sympathize because I never have had to experience that for myself beyond short visits to "their normal" functions. So I suppose that makes me kind of privileged in some way.

Thanksgiving was always different around my house. But then again, so were allot of other things when I think back on it. Thanksgiving though, was really different... different than other people's anyway.

My family and I would sit around all day listening to old time radio shows. Most especially sci-fi programs.

It was even encouraged to make and wear costumes celebrating our favorite radio show characters, which of course is simply out of the question in the modern day, given that there was never any visual to guide the costume making. My mother got away with wearing bondage gear one year... she went a little crazy with the "blonde beauty" too, but that - her and my father usually kept quiet.

She claimed to be an invader from planet Zoidalite - but we all realized she was just half crazy and wanted some other "spicy" attention from anywhere she could get it. I had her beat that year anyhow, with my aluminum foil get up depicting Captain Substantial.

I will just leave that one to your own thoughts as I am not yet as removed as is my mother in the want of extra attentions.

We would never drink. In fact it was frowned upon around my house growing up as my family had close affiliations with the originating members of the Autistic Artist's no drinking alcohol club.

It really does work.... but no one has really figured out what for EXACTLY yet, though several people have found various uses for the organization.

I can remember long holidays just sitting there listening to the radio shows broadcast heroic deed after heroic deed, to no less excitement each and every time as our capes waved and space armor rattled and cheers roared with that annoying bad sound effect echo that is supposed to sound like outer space.

I can't tell you how many times we had secret correspondence with secret agencies about real space stuff. We were just that into the radio shows.....and the costumes obviously helped with the situations. They seemed to make the secret agents a little more comfortable about the whole thing. Like it made them feel more at home.

I still hold a few of those traditions myself. No matter what, I always make a costume and dress up... regardless of whether or not I spring mother from the old folks home. And I still always have the same thing for dinner on that evening... even if I forgot to save room after eating as much Jiffed Pop popcorn as humanly possible.

Turkey T.V. dinners. At least four of them since I have grown up. I was always the one in the family that tended toward the more "normal" aspects of society and it showed in my preference for the turkey dinner on Thanksgiving.

I always thought it was kind of funny that we had T.V. dinners while we listened to old radio shows, but I pretended not to notice the contradiction and besides, dad always thought it was more authentic and space ship like.

He even insisted that we refer to the apartment as the Space Capsule Zoomer!

I don't think I will tell you what we had to call the bathroom. That one gets kind of personal....but I will tell you that there was always aluminum foil, blinking lights and plastic wire casing everywhere!

My dad even rigged the vacuum cleaner special, just for that added touch of realism. It was such a hit with the family that we had to stop using it after the third or fourth year just to keep all of the family members in the "radio room" ... more so, out of the bathroom area.

Yep! I still go with the good old turkey dinner every year!

And if I am feeling really on my game, I scoop out the cranberry sauce before I put the dinner in the oven, so I can put it back into the tray after the rest of the meal is hot.... and have it cold.

Warp speed was always great.... but a guy gets tired of watching his mothers dress blow up around her ears every year. Especially after puberty... and then even more so when it is time to explain it to the girlfriend - AGAIN.

It kind of makes me wonder if warp speed was a worth while invention. There is just so much explaining to do about the resulting effects when it gets used around Thanksgiving.

Captain Substantial is going to the galley now.... just to carefully replace the cranberry sauce in the dinner tray and then enjoy his space ship meal.

It is a zero gravity environment, you know?