Surprise Boy the Main Dish on Thanksgiving

          Aunt Jan has been dating white-haired men, so it was strange to see the brown muss of hair in the transom above our front door. She had brought home Hula Boy. We hadn't seen him in almost four months and he'd changed: he didn't stride immediately to the pantry cupboard for snacks but walked into hugs and burps of surprise. Yes, now he was Surprise Boy. We had fun stashing him away and inviting people over, then suddenly pulling him out for the surprise. We ushered him to the Kreglos for Thanksgiving dinner, then moved him about from room to room to surprise everyone, wringing the most of this unexpected guest, our 18-year-old college kid. When that got old we took him places, shoved him to the door, at the Harris's for example, and yelled surprise. At 10 p.m. we were exhausted; it was like we'd taken our candidate on a last ditch Election-eve whistle-stop tour. Surprise Boy, eager to shed the Griswalds though, grabbed the family vehicle and toured the neighborhood with his unexpected self . . . so I don't know if Chad got home before Peg and Jenna left at 4 a.m. for Black Friday shopping. Why did they go without sleep (and common sense) to do this? Because shopping, for them, is not the opportunity to buy goods for the household, but to plunge the family into debt using unmonitored credit cards and buying useless expensive items that we don't need and, therefore, will only occupy cluttered closet space until discarded as "out-of-date" two years later. So I try not to think about it and look forward to using my free-drink coupon at Starbucks with Surprise Boy. Maybe we'll see someone we know.