A quick count of adults and children confirmed it. All members of the family were either zoned out in front of a football game on television, playing with cousins in the back room, carving the turkey, stirring the gravy, or underfoot in the kitchen. Yet, the bathroom door was locked.
“Do you have a key to the bathroom door,” I asked my daughter.
“No, but there’s a screwdriver in the kitchen junk drawer—just slip it into the lock, and it’ll unlock,” my daughter answered.
That was the first of the six times someone locked the door to the empty bathroom over our three-day Thanksgiving holiday gathering. In fact, my family now considers locking the bathroom door a new “Thanksgiving tradition”– similar to serving sweet potato casserole and cranberry salad. (It took several years, but most of my family members learned to appreciate these dishes– probably because the recipes used involved lots of pecans.)
Oh yes, before we gather for Christmas at my house, I’m hunting up the key to the bathroom—or at least knowing the whereabouts of the ice pick.
Judy Carroll 