Franksgiving

Story Sent in by Dino:

I hadn't been dating Willa for too long when we invited each other to each other's family Thanksgivings. We stopped by her family's dinner and then went to mine. I had a long-time friend from grade school who always held a Thanksgiving cookout in his backyard with hot dogs later in the Thanksgiving evening, so I asked Willa if she wanted to join me for that. She said she did and so we went.

We were already pretty full from our families' dinners but went mainly just to hang out with friends. Willa seemed to be just fine on our way there and even when we arrived. My friend greeted us with open arms and with hot dogs. I accepted mine gratefully. Willa, though...

"What's that?" she asked.

"A hot dog," my friend said.

Willa said, "For Thanksgiving? Where's the turkey?"

I had told Willa that this would be a hot dog cookout kind of thing. She knew what to expect and had seemed fine with it on the way over. But she apparently wasn't fine with it anymore. My friend said, "I have some turkey dogs I can cook up, or some veggie ones if you want."

Willa said, "If there's no turkey, it's not Thanksgiving!" She then upended the plate that my friend held out for her, sending the hot dog to the ground. She then yelled at my friend, "You ruined Thanksgiving!" and stormed out of the backyard.

I was left to embarrassingly run after her and ask her what was wrong. She said to me, "You bring me to a place on Thanksgiving that doesn't even have turkey? Are you insane?"

Was I the crazy one, here? I had told her at least a couple of times that this was going to be a hot dog cookout. And I reminded her of that. She told me, "You sound insane. Listen to yourself! Where's the goddamn turkey?"

I offered turkey dogs to her, but she wasn't having it. She demanded that I take her home and so I did. Then I went right back to my friend's place and enjoyed what I could of the time that I had.

The next day, Willa emailed me a friendly message as if she hadn't gone nuts the day before. I decided to not write her back until she apologized to me for her behavior. It's been about eight years, so I'd say my chances of that apology are pretty low.