Op-Ed: Happy Thanksgiving -- Now Where Are My Marshmallows?

There's just one tradition that writer Wade Rouse isn't willing to part with on Turkey Day.

BY Wade Rouse

November 22 2012 5:01 AM ET

There was a knock on the door.

I put my head to the crack in the frame and heard Gary’s voice, speaking very calmly, like presidents do when they announce we’re going to war. “She’s adding the marshmallows,” he said. “And please don’t kill yourself in the bathroom. It won’t do any good. My mother will just decorate around your bloodstain with a few well- placed pinecone accessories.”

I laughed. I needed to laugh.

A few minutes later I emerged, and we were all finally seated at the table as a family. I felt good. This was all going to be okay.

And then, out of nowhere, the bomb dropped.

“What’s on the sweet potatoes?” a grandkid asked.

No one said a word.

“What is this?” the other one asked, picking up the ladle and then slapping it back down.

“Marshmallows,” I said.

“Gross!” they screamed at the same time. “That’s so gay!”

Time stopped, the earth slowed considerably, and the table turned silent. It was then that I actually saw the soul of Gary’s mom fleeing her body. Thanksgiving was officially ruined. I would never be asked back. Gary and I would now forever eat Swanson’s TV dinners alone at home on Thanksgiving, both of us crying in the dark and pretending that the apple brown Betty really wasn’t so bad, despite the fact that the corn had baked into one side of it.

But in the blink of an eye a holiday miracle occurred.

Someone farted—so loudly, in fact, that all of our water glasses as well as the cornucopia platter holding the turkey actually vibrated. Everyone started laughing, and, just like that, Thanksgiving was saved.

And Gary and I started a brand-new Thanksgiving tradition: We began to embrace one another’s families. And they began to embrace us, no matter the day or the holiday.

And those marshmallows?

Well, they never tasted more goldeny delicious.