#113: Thanksgiving Leftovers

**This is a special Friday edition of That's So Dad. We took off Thanksgiving (actually just forgot to write the post) so enjoy this week's article.**

So it is the day after Thanksgiving, the whole family is recovering from an orgy of turkey, pumpkin pie, and green bean casserole. The laziness is staggering as are the noises being expelled from your brother's body. But there is one person who is not ready to let the party die. As you contemplate suicide to end the pain of a severly overstuffed stomach, Dad starts busting out the aluminum foiled pecan pie and ziplock bags full of turkey and mashed potatoes. "Who is ready for Round Three? The turkey is still moist!" Dad exclaims as the rest of the family begins dry heaving just by the mere thought of food. Dads and Thanksgiving Leftovers go hand in hand since the era of the Pilgrims.

Dad's appetite is always curtailed by mom. She will always shut down Dad's true hunger. "Do you REALLY need that fourth hot dog?" "I think you should just get the small popcorn." "He will have the 12 oz. steak, not the 48oz Sir Loin-a-Lot." But Thanksgiving is not a time for portion control, it is a time for pure gluttony. So when Dad sees the inevitable leftovers of the Thansgiving carnage, he goes into forage mode. He WILL eat every bit of that turkey like a bear preparing for hibernation. It usually isn't a plate identical to the main attraction, rather it is a sandwich stacked higher than a Big Mac on top of a KFC Double Down (and more calories too). Dad piles up turkey, turkey skin, mashed potatoes, gravy, more turkey skin, stuffing, cranberry sauce, even more turkey skin, and green bean casserole between two slices of white bread with some gravy on the side. It takes a Civil Engineering degree just to build a sandwich of this magnitude. Dad demolishes the meal with a tall glass of milk, nothing else. It must be milk.

As you sit there, slack jawed that Dad put a bowling ball sized sandwich down his gullet, you realize that it is an occasion more special to Dad than having the family around the real Thanksgiving table. It is not a time for manners or pomp & circumstance. It is for gorging, plain and simple. It is only 364 days away!