I realize that the Big Day isn’t upon us just yet. Actually, as you read this, it’s exactly a week away. But break schedules being as they are, this is the last time we’ll speak before we eat ourselves silly. And when I say silly, I literally mean zany. You should see my grandma’s house at Thanksgiving. It’s a scene from ‘Animaniacs.’

I’ve realized, after several years of practice, that going home for a break (as opposed to a weekend off) is quite the out-of-body experience.

I liken coming home from school to what it must have felt like for soldiers to come home from war.

First of all, the people at home speak a different language than you’re used to. People speak in complete, usually bitter, sentences. Words like ‘obvi’ are obsolete. Profanity, with relation to the penis and other sex objects, are lost.

Second, you are always withered and tired by the time you get home. Besides the people who live in DeWitt, most of us make some sort of a hike to get to this abyss.

Finally, just like soldiers, there seems to be some division on whether your presence is actually welcomed back home. Your parents are happy to have you back. Maybe even your dog, possibly an extended relative. The more conservative members of the family, such as a brother who might not get the same attention paid to him, isn’t quite as thrilled.

I don’t know about anybody else, but for some reason, I always envision a king’s welcome upon my home arrival. Roll out the red carpet; get the guy with that abnormally long trumpet. But no, that’s never what happens.

Usually, no one is home. That is, of course, except for my ageless grandfather. We’ve been having the same conversation for, I believe, four years. At a volume that could bother the dogs in the neighborhood, we always talk about the weather, which he hasn’t experienced for more than the walk from the house to the car in two years.

At any rate, the highlight of the week is my grandmother’s house for Thanksgiving. Every year, there’s a small militia at her split-level place. The food is served (at least part of it) buffet-style. I bring this up because there’s one thing I absolutely hate about that. Why do people think it’s their right to make gratuitous comments about how much I’m piling on my plate? So what? I already know that I’m not going to feel like getting up again – is that a crime?

One of the lowlights from the week, for me at least, is that stupid Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade. What the attraction to that is, I’ll never understand. Even as a kid, I never got it. Large balloons of various kinds that are never proportionate. Snoopy’s head is waaay too big, and Spiderman looks bloated. Who is impressed by this?

Before I get into what I believe to be the most embarrassing part of any extended break, I feel that it’s time for an honest admission. At home, I only have, tops, five friends. That being said, I always seem to run into my ‘friends’ from high school where ever I go.

You know the sort of ‘friend’ I’m talking about. The sort of friend that you haven’t talked to since you graduated. The sort of friend you have to be reminded of what their first name is as they approach you. The sort of friend you can’t remember what college (if any) they went to. That sort of friend.

The worst comes in that last situation. Because you’re such good friends with this person, you must have the requisite ‘how’s school going?’ conversation, a la the weather conversation with a grandparent.

The problem arises when I realize I don’t know where the other person goes to school. After four years, if I haven’t gotten it down yet, I doubt it’s coming any time soon. Usually, I wind up guessing. Being from New Jersey, there’s one obvious guess.

‘So, how’s Rutgers’ treating you?’

‘Actually, I don’t go to Rutgers. I go to Drexel.’

‘Oh, that’s right. You transferred, right?’

‘No, I’ve been going there the whole time.’

At this point, I just pathetically admit that I couldn’t even locate Drexel on a map if I was in their library and hopelessly weasel my way out of the conversation, hoping my grandfather needs help figuring out the weather.

All said, this next week is about friends. As Dilated Peoples once said, ‘Fresh off a flight, without my people, life ain’t worth the fight. When worse comes to worse, my people come first.’

Scott Spinelli’s column appears every Thursday. He agrees with you: Chow and Lo Mein are the same thing. Or at least they should be.

Published on November 14, 2007 at 12:00 pm