Totally Adequate: Thanksgiving Edition

Being Totally Adequate is not just a part-time responsibility; you're on all the time. This is even more true for the holidays, when events necessitate putting up with other people and impressing them all with your adequacy.

If someone invites you for Thanksgiving dinner, try to be your most Totally Adequate self:

• Bring cheap wine. Don't take the chance that your hosts aren’t wine people and wouldn’t appreciate the thought and expense.
• Don’t shower or dress up that day. These people invited you, not some gussied-up image of you. So just come as you are.
• Try to dominate the conversation at the table with tales about yourself. For one thing, this removes the awkward silences as everyone tries to think of something appropriate to say. Besides, these people are probably really interested in knowing more about you or else they wouldn’t have invited you.
• If your hosts don’t offer, ask if you can take home the leftovers. It’s usually a chore finding room in the fridge for all of it, so you’ll be helping out. Besides, you can eat well for a week on that stuff. Don’t take everything, though; leave the stuff you don’t like, with appropriate phrases like, “You can keep this – it was pretty gross.”

Be part of what you can be: Be Totally Adequate.