The Nightmare Before Thanksgiving

My wife, son and I celebrated Thanksgiving with the new couple in the neighborhood. We had not seen much of the husband, but the wife seemed very friendly, but there was a certain uneasiness about her that I could not pinpoint.
For one thing, she insisted we arrive after sunset. By this time most people have had their dinner, taken a nap, awakened and refreshed, ready to watch football and eat leftovers.
We assumed that the time of the dinner was dictated by some Slavic tradition. The wife had am almost indiscernible accent from some distant corner of the Balkans.
The Thanksgiving turkey itself was more the size of a Cornish hen, obviously a serving for one. Even more peculiar, our hostess grabbed that little chicken carcass and chomped into it with vigor. She didn’t even have a bowl of cranberries on the side for us to nibble on.
The door creaked open, and standing there—back lit like a character from a Steven Spielberg movie—was her husband. He was tall, gaunt, wan and handsome in a dead movie star sort of way.
Now the reason for the surprise dinner invitation was evident—we were not invited to eat a dinner. We were invited to be eaten for dinner.
The impact of this revelation was lost on my wife. She realized there was no food on the table except for the Cornish hen which at this point was—for all intents and purposes only bones suitable for a boiling brine to become a savory broth. She had adjourned to the kitchen where she poked around the refrigerator for something else to eat.
My son, who is a long-time corrections officer, wasted no time in breaking apart a dining room chair to create a wooden stake to drive into our host’s heart. This is one of his finer traits. He’s very good at disarming potential threats. However, most women do not find this talent very romantic so therefore he is still single.
Somehow we made it to the roof where our host was most intent on stalking me. After eluding him a few times, I noticed that our host had a problem adjust his direction rapidly. Taking this into account, I ran to the edge of the roof where my son stood with his stake.
I made an abrupt turn left, and our host ran straight into my son’s stake. With a loud gasp, he fell off the roof and turned into a million vampire particles before he reached the front lawn.
By the time my son and I returned to the dining room, my wife was feeding our hostess from a bowl of cranberries she had found in the refrigerator. She had been a probation officer so grief counseling was part of her job training.
I must admit being aghast when I heard my wife pitching our son to be our hostess’s next husband. I’ve never approved of marriage on the rebound. Also, I questioned the wisdom of our son’s marriage to a woman who just a few minutes ago offered him up to her now deceased husband as Thanksgiving dinner.
As a final note, as you may have guessed, this entire encounter had been one of my overly vivid dreams the night before Thanksgiving. We actually spent Thanksgiving dinner with a very sweet couple who gave us a pot of purple orchids. Our son, as usual, had to spend the holiday working at the prison.
Bah humbug.

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