5 Credible Excuses For Casually Escaping Into Solitude This Thanksgiving
Thanksgiving is a time of plenty.
Plenty of food, plenty of drink and plenty of anxiety-inducing social interactions with family members who voted for Donald Trump.
Luckily for you, I've compiled a list of escape routes that have proven to be tried and true. Make sure you don't go into Thanksgiving this year without maneuvering a foolproof escape plan.
Go for a run.
Sure, it's been years since you considered cardio a viable way to spend your time. Your family doesn't know that, and they don't need to!
As far as they know, you could be training for a marathon.
Lace up those running shoes you bought yourself last New Year's Eve... and boom! You might not be a runner, but you're dressed like one, and that's all that matters because the only running you'll be doing is out of their lines of sight.
Once you're over the two-block hump, you're free to wander the surrounding neighborhood and listen to your favorite podcast, pet your neighbors' dogs or look up at the sky and wonder what the point of all this traditional forced-fun is.
Catch up on some work.
Maybe you're still on unemployment checks after getting laid off six months ago, but that doesn't mean you don't have some stuff to catch up on. After all, you haven't checked your Facebook in, like, 15 minutes.
Your ex is spending T-Give with his new SO's family and that ass-hound hasn't stopped posting pics since they got in the car. You might opt to send him a passive-aggressive "like" or two, just as a gesture of insanity.
Grab that laptop and head to a coffee shop. You're going to need a break from the misery that is your family in order to concentrate on this misery instead.
Bait your family into political discussion, then DIP OUT.
If Trump's presidential win is going to work in your favor in any way, it might as well be like this.
You're sitting around the kitchen and you ask whom everyone voted for, then when tensions get high and someone calls your uncle a racist (as they inevitably will), you slip out like a thief in the night.
You'll feel like a psychological David Blaine as you disappear out the back door and onto the lawn to stare into space. Sit back, relax and escape into the silence of your emotional exhaustion.
Pretend the car needs gas and drive away.
This is what you'll say when you're pulling out the driveway and your nosy-ass cousin comes out the front door yelling, "Where are you going?"
How did she know you were leaving anyway, was she watching you from the attic window?
Before she can ask to come along, blast your music and step on the gas, cause there's only room for one in that SUV built for six. Nothing says "no further questions, cuz" like peeling out of the driveway and leaving her in a cloud of exhaust.
Forget to pick something up from the grocery store.
This one will take some planning.
You've got to keep an ear out for an opportunity to head to the store... which requires contact with other family members... which sucks.
Also, if you have a history of drug addiction like I do, nobody wants to trust you to leave the house to go anywhere near a pharmacy.
But if you have no prior incidents and your intentions are pure, you can maneuver this pretty easily. Just volunteer your time to pick up the cranberry sauce and yams your idiot uncle forgot to pick up, then go to the grocery store to wander the aisles for hours.
Circumstances are on your side; you can say you had to go to several places because the other ones were wiped clean of side dish ingredients. Then in all the hubbub, you completely forgot to get those damn YAMS.
UGH. WHAT A PAIN, now you'll have to spend a WHOLE HOUR IN COMPLETE SOLITUDE looking for yams! What a (wink,wink) DRAG, amiright?
There you have it, ladies and gents: a host of planned escapes for every day you'll be away for Thanksgiving.
You no longer need to fear the wrath of a holiday surrounded by your relatives, trapped in the memories of your childhood!
Now eat, drink and be merry, for tomorrow we prepare for the hell that is holiday season.
