Travels With Mike

Diary of a Most Unusual Thanksgiving

by Mike Rank | November 28, 2002 This is me, after a Thanksgiving meal. Anyone have some Pepto? Want to explore New York Mike Style? Buy your own damn book. Wednesday 6:15 P.M. I arrive in Manhattan to spend Thanksgiving in New York. Across the street from the hotel is a crowd of about a dozen Asian men and women with bullhorns screaming something indecipherable. The concierge tells me they're protesting a rival hotel that uses a laundry service that is unfair to immigrants. When I ask if they are planning on stopping anytime soon, he shrugs his shoulders and returns to his previous activity of staring at a plant. Wednesday 8:15 PM It's about 25 blocks from my hotel to where the balloons for the Macys Balloons are being blown up. It seems like a good idea to hoof the distance and soak in the New York pre-winter atmosphere. Instead, I soak up my scrotum into my mid-torso. Even though I bought a knit cap somewhere on 58th, my face has frozen into some bizarre contortion and my nipples are shooting out like turkey thermometers in their own bizarre Thanksgiving tribute. Or perhaps I'm actually subconsciously aroused by the site of Ronald Mc Donald being strapped down to the sidewalk in a compromising position. I suppose I should be disturbed by the scene, but he's smiling and giving me the "thumbs up" sign, so I give little thought to sight of the Barney the Dinosaur crawling up his backside. My attention turns to "Blues Clues", who has been pinned to the ground and contained by a group of about thirty warriors who feverishly pull at the net to keep their prey contained. In my best Australian accent, I yelled "Crikey, that one's a beauty!" I said it three times. I got a real good laugh out of how clever I am. Thursday 9:30 AM It's a new day and it's still freezing outside, but I brave the cold to head towards the parade route. I'm two blocks away when I see Charlie Brown floating over the crowd like a retarded specter. Big Bird comes flying through the buildings as I arrive on scene and I secretly yearn that he will crap all over the crowd. Likewise, I wish that more characters I recognize would float by. My heart sinks a little further with each foreign balloon that comes floating by. When I can't recognize a cartoon character that is significant enough to turn into a fifty-foot piece of inflatable plastic, it's a sad reminder that I'm getting old. It takes almost an hour for us to weasel our way up to the front of the crowd, only to turn back ten minutes later. The cold is so unbearable that I fail to recognize the Baha Men, who are curled up on the Animal Planet float like frozen fetuses. Instead, I had turned my attention to the twenty plus story building directly across the street from us. Nearly every balcony is crammed with people watching the parade. About fifteen stories up, a group of what appears to be teenagers are ripping up pieces of newspaper and magazines, throwing them into the air. It falls in a continuous stream, with random scraps of Victoria's Secret models and Eddie Bauer Parkas occasionally flying into my face. On the way home, we pass by a mattress propped against a building. It's covered with a crimson colored liquid that has soaked through the fabric and ran into the street. I tell my girlfriend it just dye or syrup someone put on it to keep homeless people from sleeping on it. She thinks it's blood, but she's a girl. I'm a guy and we know these things. Thursday 1:00 PM After a couple hours in the hotel to regain feeling in my legs, we make our way to Radio City Music Hall for the Rockettes Christmas spectacular. My girlfriend had always wanted to go, so by default I must have wanted to go, too. My curiosity didn't really pique until I entered the venue and realized how massive the inside actually is. Just like Little Orphan Annie with Daddy Warbucks, I soaked in the atmosphere with what must have undoubtedly been a retarded look on my face. While I've seen more than my fair share of dance recitals over the years, the show was something everyone they should see before they die. That and the Gator farm in Florida. Thursday 4:00 PM After the show, we walk to ESPN Sports Zone to meet my Canadian boss and his Japanese wife for dinner (I specify nationalities only because it will come into play later in the story). We arrive on time and my boss is there, frantically pacing in anticipation of a booth. After over a half an hour of yelling at the hostesses, we manage to land a sweet booth facing the jumbo screens. I'm not sure which game we watched, but I cheered for whatever team was making the blocks or scoring points in between stuffing my face. Thursday 7:30 PMish We've watched the entire game. I don't remember the last part, except that the waitresses had cleared all of the other tables and began turning off of the lights in hopes that we would leave. My boss suggests we move the party to "Hogs and Heifers", a bar that was the inspiration for the movie "Coyote Ugly, located in the meatpacking district of Manhattan. This naturally led to us joking about different types of "packing" that might occur in such a district, which brought about befuddled looks from my bosses' wife. He began speaking to her and I didn't know what was he was explaining until I heard the word "Fudgepacker" littered in a string of Japanese phrases. Her face turned beet red and she turned to me with a frightened look on her face, hoping I would say it wasn't so. I just shrugged my shoulders and finished off the last sip of a drink (it might have been mine). Thursday 8:00 PMish Empty cardboard boxes and sidewalks stained with various chemicals that have seeped from dead animals are spread as far as the eye can see, with a small corner lot lit up with red signs like Satan's Christmas Tree. Inside it appears to be Satan's Living Room, with hardwood floors that extend up the walls into a collection of antique road signs and discarded bras. Our hostess for the evening was a foul-mouthed vixen clad with a pair of jeans and a sports bra. In order to keep the bartender from turning on us, we have to submit to her requests, which requires the ladies in our company to have to get up on the bar to dance. It also require us to order a shot of Wild Turkey with every round to make up for the plain Ginger Ale we have to order for my bosses wife who doesn't drink. SIDEBAR: If you haven't seen the movie "Coyote Ugly", you probably have no idea why we "have" to order a shot. If you try to order water or non-alcoholic beverages in the bar, they hose you down with water. Really Thursday 9:00 PMish I have no idea what's going on. Thursday 9:30 PMish I try to use the restroom, whose door is obscured behind a collage of stickers. No sooner does the door close behind me when I hear the waitress screaming through a bullhorn "THAT'S THE WRONG BATHROOM, ASSHOLE!" I sheepishly wander back out to a bar full of snickering bikers and truckers, not to mention one irate, (possibly) lesbian bartender who was motioning to a sticker clad wall that contained a men's room. It was noticeably smaller and smellier than the woman's, not to mention that it didn't have a lock on the door. Fortunately, I was only there to puke up the half dozen shots of Wild Turkey I'd consumed, an unfortunate burden of the wife of my boss having a voracious appetite for Ginger Ale. I probably would have been fine if I hadn't been swing dancing with my boss. Thursday 10:00 PMish Country music is blaring from the jukebox. I'm doing patented "Riverdance" moves on the floor. Thursday 10:30 PMish I've been arrested. Although I'm not sure why, I decide I have to take advantage of the officers neglect to handcuff me and break myself free. As I prepare to throw myself out the door of the moving vehicle, I notice my girlfriend is in the backseat with me. Time to prepare a plan B where I can get the both of us safety. It's only when I pass the mattress on the street do I realize I'm in the back of a cab, on my way to the hotel. Babies don't sleep as well as I did. Friday 10:59 AM We check out of our hotel one-minute before we're supposed to, leaving our luggage with the Concierge so we can peruse the city. We walk thirteen blocks past our friend the mattress to Macys. It's what I imagine the LA Riots would have looked like if staged indoors. It takes us twenty minutes to walk through the store, a span of time in which I'm accosted by at least some forty well dressed men thrusting cologne samples in my face. My heart bleeds for the rabbits in testing facilities that don't have the luxury of walking out the East Side exit doors into the frigid air. Friday 12:15 PM After waiting in line for fifteen minutes, we enter the Times Square Toys R' Us. Until now, I believed that Macys was the world's worst indoor catastrophe. That was before I saw the mob congregating under the Tyrannosaurs Rex in the dinosaur section. Should my illegitimate kids ever show up some day in search of a parental figure, I hope they are not too disappointed with the business and investment books they receive as Christmas gifts. Once they earn their own money, they can buy their own toys. Friday 1:48 PM We walk by the mattress on our way home. It's still there. Except now it's encrusted with a yellow "CAUTION" tape frosting, encrusted with two police cars and a police van. I debate stopping to give a statement before realizing I had no statement to give. My girlfriend dissuaded me from taking a picture, so I just walk on. I predict the launch of a new t.v. series called "Law & Order: Victimized Mattress Unit" by months end. Friday 7:00 PM I've left the thriving metropolis of Manhattan for the sadly decrepit state of Connecticut, where I call home. My boss has invited me over for a traditional Thanksgiving dinner, along with some of his family and our co-workers. It's a day late, but the turkey was a free gift from the supermarket his wife shops at and combined with the potatoes and stuffing make it seem as authentic as if it was the day of. Although it doesn't occur to me, my girlfriend points out that we're the only U.S.Citizens in attendance. She's right. There's my Canadian boss and his brother, his Japanese wife and our friends, a Taiwanese couple with their child. Then there's me, California boy with his Midwestern girlfriend. Both sides of the spectrum gathered around a table, partaking in a tradition that should mean nothing to the rest of them, but they are there to cook and break bread together. It's enough to make a grown man cry. Saturday 10:00PM Enough of the nostalgia crap. It's still a holiday weekend and Thanksgiving isn't truly a holiday until you screw over the Indians; it's an American tradition. Naturally we head to Foxwoods, the worlds largest Indian Casino which is conveniently located about a hundred or so miles from Plymouth Rock, where the original pilgrims landed and raised hell. In honor of our founding fathers, I came in like gangbusters, hung around on their land, had them serve us a free meal then left with $600 of their money. I was tempted to finish off their last platter of Buffalo Wings, but why add insult to injury?