An alarming situation at Thanksgiving

“I left the power cords in the car dear, would you please get them for me?” Mr. Hall rose and reached for his keys. The Halls were visiting the one of the more lively branches of the family tree in Brighton MI that morning and had just settled in. The big black car had traveled at record speed to make it to the home of Rick and Gail Pranitis, host and hostess extraordinaire, for the Thanksgiving holiday.
Thursday morning they were up before their hosts and hoping to check the obituary columns in their hometown rags. Mrs. Hall had just opened her laptop, when she heard a small beep. It started slowly but quickly gained momentum. “Better tell Rick”, she said softly, but before they could scale the steps, the beeping escalated to a shrill siren. Mr. Hall, in his haste to acquire the power cords from his car, had tripped the security alarms on the front door. Rick keyed in the code and silence fell upon the house again. “I know it’s a big turkey and all,” he said, “Really too much for just us, but there must be a better way to invite folks than bringing in the local law enforcement.” With the coffee brewing and most of the merry band now awake, the remainder of the morning passed without incident.
Once the turkey was prepared and ceremonially placed in the oven, the real business of holiday fun could commence. While the boys relaxed in the living room, indulging in every football game being broadcast to the western hemisphere that day, the rest of the clan immersed themselves in a cutthroat game of Scrabble. Halfway through, play halted to receive a teleconference from Master Chris down in Alabama. Foul was called on Mrs. Hall, who, taking advantage of current technology to video chat over the internet, could be seen beaming her scrabble hand to Chris for some outside help.
The Halls could not have been more pampered: Rick, having perfected his Manhattan making, was Johnny-on-the-spot with the refills, and Gail outdid herself with the turkey and the dressing. With barely a square inch of dining table real estate left uncovered, they sat down for blessings and the feast.
Just as television repeats the cartoon classics and newspapers reprint those wonderful old yarns, when we come together as a family, there is something inside of us that longs to hear the old stories again. The cumulative effects of good food and ample wine were sufficiently relaxing enough to tease fond memories of childhood fun and even a song or two out of the merry band. Eventually managing to push away from the table, Gail, Mrs. H. and the kids slipped upstairs to watch a movie together. It was a perfect ending to a lovely visit. Bright and early the next morning, the Halls hit the roads back home, full of good cheer and packed with more than enough turkey sandwiches to get them safely to Syracuse again.