November/December 1987
By the Mother Earth News editors
LAST LAUGH
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We interrupt the ongoing rail ramblings of the Plumtree Crossing Continental Cruisers just in time to share the following message sent to us by Jeff Taylor, whose cautionary tale concerns that upcoming national trauma—the holidays.
When I was growing up, we celebrated every Thanksgiving and Christmas at Aunt Lucy's house in the country. At her insistence, some 30 souls, counting kids and dogs, Would gather there: a running pack of uncles arguing sports and politics, a gaggle of aunts underfoot in her huge country kitchen and a small herd of kids in search-and destroy mode among valuable heirlooms.
"Pshaw," she'd grate out after we kids tipped over a hutch full of dishes, "that china was so old that Washington ate off it once! High time to buy new!"
Aunt Lucy always rushed about during the holidays, a gingham whirlwind cooking, cleaning, taking part in several conversations, mediating heated arguments between crazed adults or rioting children and drinking coffee nonstop to keep her warp drive on maximum. She refused all offers of help. She always insisted, panting, that these gatherings were "no work at all, no trouble; why, it wouldn't be the holidays otherwise." Then she'd light another cigarette, compulsively explaining that nicotinic acid was really pure niacin, an important B-complex vitamin.
But it was clear that stress was taking its awful toll. She'd fret about overcooking the turkey, about finding the ideal gift for each person, about making the holidays perfect. Somewhere, unfortunately, she'd read that stress was the tension that gave life its spring and that certain people thrived on it. She thought she was one of those people. "I just love the hustling and bustling," she'd claim. But just before one fateful Thanksgiving, she was sometimes pronouncing that last word "buttsling.
" Little slips like that, say the psychologists, can be warning signs.
There were others, like the wrinkles on her brow that'd grown deep enough to hide a penny. All in all, though, she hid the strain well, until that one Thanksgiving. After it, she was a changed person, no longer worrying about Turkeyday tidiness or Yuletide logistics. The wrinkles disappeared.
She'd found a cure for stress.
That Thanksgiving, Aunt Lucy stood in the dooryard, wiping her hands on her apron as the first cars of the fleet pulled in and belched out relatives. As usual, she'd worked round the clock for three days cleaning house, preparing the main feast and all the trimmings, baking pies and putting them under little tinfoil tents—knowing all the time that Christmas was thundering up next. Her face looked as if she were riding in a NASA centrifuge: smiling, sort of, but under considerable strain.
With a wan wave, she greeted the holiday hordes. Then as the guests began to stream inside, she slumped suddenly against the porch post. Her hand went to her head, and she made a little sound, a soft "urk!" (I'm pretty sure I saw two faint wisps of smoke coming from her ears.)
