Every awkward encounter you’ll have this Thanksgiving

This is the week of food and thanks. But it’s important to remember that coming home means seeing the people you haven’t seen in months.

Dinner with long-lost relatives doesn’t always go smoothly, so before you get overly eager to head home, let me  remind you of all the fabulously awkward occurrences you may encounter.

Running into your ex at the supermarket

Your mom asks you to go get extra cucumbers and canned cranberry sauce, so you head out to the grocery store in your pajamas and bed head just to run into your ex. Yes, there they are standing in all their glory on aisle 12 and now you’re stuck. You see them but they don’t see you because they’re scanning the different seasonings. Do you say hi? Do you wish them a Happy Thanksgiving? Do you tell them to fuck off?

While you’re busy having an internal fight with yourself, they spots you and make eye contact. It’s most likely the experience will be a simple  “hello” and then a short exchange about how you’re doing great even, though you are resisting the urge to confess your love for them and slow dance down the aisle. Yep, this is how it will all go down: a short and awkward exchange of words.

Your annoying Aunt asking you about internships at the dinner table

You’re sitting at the table and you’ve barely made it through the appetizers when Aunt Betty speaks up with her full mouth, “So, where are you interning this summer? Your real life is starting you know and you don’t want to waste it getting drunk with your buddies!”

Now you have to make up fake opportunities and fake job searches that you haven’t participated in during the last few months and pretend to have your life together. “Yes, Aunt Betty I know. I applied to a few uhhh underground places that you probably haven’t heard of but it’s looking good!” That will be the end of that. *Chugs wine*

Having to sip your wine when you know you how to chug a bag of Franzia

Now that the awkward tension concerning your crumbling future has been established, you go to chug your wine, but suddenly remember that this a family gathering and probably not the appropriate time to get shit-faced.

You instead are forced to take timid sips and slosh it around in that classy adult manner while ignoring the fact that you were on a frat table last weekend slapping the bag for all of your friends’ snap story. ‘Tis the season to stay sober at family dinners.

Having a dinner with relatives who have radically different political views

The conversation is going well until one of your family members jokes around about you needing a “safe space” because you’re one of the whiny college students the media talks about. Or if one of your cousins decide to go on about how Pence was attacked at the theater and you’re in the corner rapping Hamilton songs in your head while they spew nonsense.

Either way politics and turkey should never be in a room together… or is that religion? Well, either way, let’s make Thanksgiving great again and stop all the political talk before it’s a bloodbath.

Grabbing the same item of clothing as somebody else on Black Friday

You’re at the mall and it’s a packed madhouse, but you’re ready to get the perfect clothing for holiday season. You have your eye on that perfect  New Year’s Eve outfit and you’re going to buy it. As you reach for those last pair of Steve Maddens in your size, another girl reaches out  to put you in a very real and awkward predicament.

You’re on two hours of sleep, a very full stomach, and this was your dream. It’s the last piece of your outfit you need before going home, so what do you do? Do you give up on your dream or do you risk looking like a complete psycho and snagging it from this entitled asshole. Whatever you choose, there will be consequences.

Running into an old frenemy at your town general store.

You go into town to grab a dozen bagels for your guests and there they are. The person you weren’t the biggest fan of but always took pictures with at house parties for four years in high school. After cheap vodka shots, you maybe took a selfie together back in the day, but let’s face it, you’re not friends anymore and you haven’t thought about them since those good ol’ days.

But they spot you and give you a big hug as if you never left each other, and have to seem overly elated to be in their presence once again. This encounter will most likely exhausting from all the fakeness.

Good luck on your journey home. I wish you all a Happy Thanksgiving break and a week filled with wonderfully uncomfortable, yet inevitably awkward moments. It’s not about the awkwardness you encounter but rather how you thrive in times of tension. I’ll be sitting in a corner with a bowl of mashed potatoes, drinking wine from the bottle if you need me.