Micah and Sherri sat across from the coffee table – as they always did this time of year – and peered into the bowl.
Inside it were five small, folded pieces of paper.
Sherri held a quarter.
“OK,’ she said. “You call it in the air.”
She launched the coin with her thumb, and as it fluttered end-over-end Micha shouted, “Heads!”
The quarter landed on top of Sherri’s left hand, she covered it, and then took a peek.
“Heads it is,” she said. “You get to pick.”
Micah carefully eyed the bowl, stirred the paper slightly with his right index finger, pulled out a piece, and then unfolded it.
He let out a long sigh.
“Show it to me,” Sherri said, smiling.
He handed it over and revealed the word scribbled in pen, “illness.”
Sherri shrugged.
“What’s wrong with that?” she asked. “That’s perfect, actually.”
Micah rolled his eyes.
“That’s the one we used last year,” he said. “I told my family I had food poisoning, and you told yours you had the flu. It’d be a little too convenient if we did that again.”
Sherri disagreed.
“Not at all,” she said. “It is the cold and flu season – November is always the cold and flu season. And food poisoning? It can happen any time, any place. Ever heard of gas station sushi? Really, this is the best excuse of all of them. It’s sure as heck better than the one I drew two years ago.”
It was 2021 when Sherri won the toss and picked a piece of paper with the word “car trouble.”
“We could’ve made the car trouble excuse work,” she said. “But somebody screwed that up royally, didn’t they?”
Micah grimaced.
“Yeah, yeah, yeah … I should’ve said we had car trouble in North Dakota or some place like that,” he said. “I never thought Uncle Lou would drive over and pick us up.”
“Oh, but he did,” Sherri said, wagging her finger at Micah. “And the man always smells like roasted broccoli. I used to love roasted broccoli until I got a whiff of your uncle.”
Micah chuckled.
“I think you’re being kind,” he said. “There’s the smell of roasted broccoli, and then there’s the smell of the flatulence that follows the consumption of roasted broccoli. I’m pretty sure Uncle Lou had let a few rip before he picked us up.
“The best part, though, was sitting in the corner of the kitchen and watching Aunt Eunice toss back those deviled eggs. It was gross, but in an artful kind of way.”
The couple called their annual ritual the “Introvert Society Thanksgiving Day Charade.” Knowing they would be invited to several different holiday gatherings – and knowing they were both painfully shy and got nervous in large crowds – they would draw from the “Excuse Bowl” to come up with a ruse.
They loved their families and treasured their friends, and it’s not that they wanted to lie – it’s just they’d rather lie than leave the house and dive into a sea of humanity.
They had done the paper draw for more than 10 years, and the five excuses were “illness,” “work,” “argument,” “car trouble” and “Federal Witness Protection Program.”
The last one was a joke.
Maybe.
“I can’t believe that over an entire decade we’ve never picked WITSEC,” Sherri mused. “That would be awesome. New names, new jobs … new lives in a new location. Of course, after a while we’d probably make new friends, and they’d invite us over for the holidays.
“The wheels on the bus go round and round, I suppose.”
Micah reached for his cellphone.
“So, why don’t I call my family and tell them I have the flu, and you can call yours and say you have food poisoning,” Micah said. “No, wait … maybe mix it up and say you have strep throat.”
Sheri walked over to Micah and gave him a big hug.
“I love you,” she said. “You, me, our three cats, one goldfish, in the den, eating a pizza from the freezer and watching Planes, Trains and Automobiles – just like every year. “It’s my favorite Thanksgiving tradition.”