Because, outside of the more hirsute and four-legged members of the family, there’s just the two of us here, we’d decided that we wouldn’t do a full Thanksgiving spread, that we’d just eat some fried chicken, some biscuits, maybe some mashed potatoes. But, my son explained, we still had to have pie.

“What kind?”

“Pumpkin…no pecan…oh I can’t decide…maybe we should have them both,” he answered.

And so on Tuesday evening, in an effort to avoid the rush, I placed two pies in the fridge, one pumpkin, one pecan. I then shook my finger just at the end of my son’s nose and said, “I expect you to stay out of these, that you not sit at home tomorrow and eat these pies…they’re for Thanksgiving.”

“But Mom, they’ll be so tempting—can’t I have a piece? Of the pecan at least?”

“A piece, Dylan, but DO. NOT. SIT. HERE. ALL. DAY. AND. EAT. AN. ENTIRE. PIE.” I thought my directive was clear.

Yet somehow I wasn’t surprised when I came in from work Wednesday evening and discovered that, while the pumpkin pie was untouched (presumably because it leans dangerously close to a health food, being made with a vegetable and all), the pecan pie had been absolutely eviscerated.

I yelled and screamed, as mothers do when they discover that their teenage son has eaten an entire pecan pie while they were away at work. And then I ranted and raved. And then I cussed. And my son, he didn’t exactly stand there, hands behind his back, humbled, sheepish, apologetic. No, he was offended, because, he explained, he had, in fact, left for me a piece of pie. And he had, indeed, if you think of “piece” in the same way as you do “a bit,” or “a crumb” or “that which the dog wouldn’t eat.” Yes, in my quick rush to judgment, I had callously disregarded the generosity of my son because he had, in fact, left me a three inch piece of nibbled-on crust, bereft of any pecans or the tasty ooey gooey, but nevertheless, in the world of gluttony teenagers, he’d left for me a piece of pie. “I could’ve eaten it all,” he offered, “but I didn’t because I know you like it too.” Gee, um, thanks.

On Thanksgiving morning my brother called, to let me talk to my mom, to wish me a happy Thanksgiving, and he started off the conversation in the usual way: "What are you doing?"

I answered truthfully: "I'm writing about what a cruel bastard you were to me when we were kids."

And then he said what he always says: "Why can't you ever write anything nice about me?"

And then I said what I always say: "Because I suck at lying."

We chatted for a while, planned our Christmas visit, and hung up just about the time my son woke up. He wandered out into the living room, clad only in a pair of sagging boxers and a blanket that dragged the floor behind him. He complained that it was cold, scratched himself a few times, then headed for the kitchen, where he stood over the sink and ate. And ate. And ate. Then ate some more.

All in all, though, we had a nice day. By the middle of the afternoon, I’d regretted, of course, not having a turkey, the stuffing, and all of the other accoutrements, but just about the time I'd utterly convinced myself that I'd made a terrible decision to not cook, that I'd simply drop to the floor and die without some of the typical Thanksgiving fare, my neighbor with the three good teeth knocked on my door with the ten bucks I'd given her two weeks ago and a plate mounded with the very food I’d been craving. So not only did I survive the holiday, having been saved at the last minute with a plate of cold poultry, but I also worked out afterwards, my own personal penance for engorging on things that were cooked in a suspicious kitchen that had been (hopefully) purchased with money (made from some likely illegal transaction). But damn that food was good. And I was thankful.