Well, I Guess SOME People Just Had Some Turkey...

Went to a major Thanksgiving thinger the other night. There was a lot of excitement, and about a bazillion relatives of one sort or another around. Much wine. Much beer. Much food. Much good time.

Now, one advantage to the place where we were Thanksgivingating is that it belongs to high-dollar people who have children (granted, spoiled-to-death children, but still) who are about the same age as the grandkids. Their house is freakin’ huge, in a no-kidding mansion sense, and a not inconsiderably large part of it is devoted to entertaining kids. Which means that when we showed up, all the kids (who know their way around the place better than we do) promptly disappeared into the bowels of the child-entertainment area and were heard from no more until time to eat. After the meal, they bansheed off back into their lair.

Throughout the evening, the boys (and an occasional girl) would, at unpredictable intervals, go screaming through the adult area waving a light saber or a sword, sometimes stopping to toss back a half-glass of lemonaide, apparently running a tactical route and trying to flank an enemy in some sort of heated battle. We didn’t see my grandkids at all. 

No one paid any of the high-volume wads of out-of-control boys the slightest attention as they careened past, screaming war whoops and slamming doors, and diving down flights of steps three at a time. How any didn’t get hurt is kind of a miracle, although one that plays out pretty regularly with this bunch (reference "spoiled" above.) 

I figured that our two granddaughters (one is nine and the other eleven) had hidden away somewhere to play with dolls and/or read a book, since that’s their usual style, and the boy was doubtless whacking someone with a light saber. So, it was not surprising they’d disappeared into the caverns without a ripple.

Anyhow, about midnight, it was time to go, so we started hunting kids. We went down into the basement and found a twilight world lit with some strings of Christmas lights and UV lamps apparently taken from a slot-racing track that wound around the place (I told you they were high-dollar.) There were a few pools of sullen half-light leaking from rooms in hallways, but it was DARK down there except for the flaming swords and humming light sabers. So, what were they all doing in the dark?

Nope. You’re wrong.

They were engaged in full-contact tribal combat rolling across the entire breadth of that huge house’s murky basement full of rooms and hallways, and up and down three floors of stairways, literally so loud that they didn’t hear us yelling at them until we physically grabbed one of them by the arm.

My granddaughters, the lights of my life, the apples of my eye…

Both had pulled their hair back into ponytails and had found some makeup in an upstairs bathroom that they used to paint black tribal stripes on their cheeks below their eyes, as had their cousins and a variety of other girls and a few boys. We found one boy under guard and weeping in a small bathroom, where he’d been trapped for probably about 20 minutes with the girls promising he’d NEVER get out till he changed sides — he was a POW, and in the process of getting his mascara-based tribal tattoos applied when we found him. No one would admit to any enhanced interrogation techniques, (apparently taking my longtime mantra to heart: "Admit nothing, Deny everything, Demand proof!") but he was thoroughly broken.

My innocent, pure-as-the-driven-snow granddaughters were the combat leaders who were running the whole operation, or at least on the girls’ side.

I’ve never been prouder in my life.

So, y’know. A good Thanksgiving.