I'm thankful it's over...

I might have lost my temper over Thanksgiving. I shouldn’t say “might have” as if there is a possibility that I didn’t lose my temper. I did lose my temper over Thanksgiving. I lost it in that screaming and swearing at my grandfather kind of way. Politics at the dinner table… never a good idea yet a family tradition.

And that’s fine. Everybody speaks and it’s a political round table. Except this table wasn’t round. And some how out numbered 3 to 2 the men at the table decided their opinions were more valuable than ours. To the point that anytime we would start to speak they would talk over us. Will would talk Grandpa would talk, and we would listen and when they stopped talking I would start to speak and one of them would start talking right over me, as if I wasn’t speaking, as if I wasn’t there.

And it started the moment I came into the room to greet Grandpa. I started to say how he would be proud I was a good daughter today, I shoveled out Mom’s driveway, making it the first driveway to be cleared on her block. I started to tell him this, I was a sentence and a half in when he turned and started talking to Will as if I wasn’t there.

It had actually been a cute anecdote about while I was shoveling a neighbor came out and wished me a happy Thanksgiving. He told me it was nice weather for shoveling. To which I responded “It’s perfect weather for shoveling, I tried it in the summer but it didn’t work nearly as well”.

But my grandfather wasn’t interested in hearing from me, he wanted to talk to will. I took his coat and walked away a little irritated.

Dinner was good. I was helping in the kitchen leading up to dinner and that suited me fine. But afterward is when the political talks began. Will and Grandpa formed their own little “boys club” and would not let anyone get a word in edgewise. Mom and Beth would yell breaking into the fray but I would wait for the pauses to ad my two cents. And every time Grandpa or Will would talk right over me. I was getting frustrated and punctuate my anger by getting up and stomping off to get something or to say “Forget it I’m done”. It went on for about 40 minutes or so like this.

By now the topic was protecting the environment. Beth was saying that the government needs to be ones leading the incentives for going green. But they argued it had to be an individual effort. When Beth was through speaking I offered the example of the Worcester Trash Recycling Program. While most people in Worcester wouldn’t recycle on their own, once they had no choice but to try it, they fell into the habit of separating cans, bottles, and paper form their trash. While the individual efforts hadn’t produced great results, when given a program, they became one of the leaders of recycling in the state.

However I couldn’t that out. At least not in a civil tone. Because once I started speaking they started talking over me. And I blew up. I pushed away form the table and said I was done that it was fucking rude to talk over me and I wasn’t going to take it any more. I screamed it, I swore at my 90 year old grandfather, who I love. I yelled that “maybe if I yell loud enough you can hear me”. I howled my anger.

Bad enough that they were being rude, but that is was so damn sexist. The two of them wouldn’t listen to a damn word any of us females had to say. We females, the founders of the feast, the ones who make this event happen every year. Intelligent women, who have real, valid points being ignored, talked over and talked down to. Why because we don’t have that small faulty Y chromosome. Well thank you very much but no.

I stormed into the kitchen and started violently cleaning up the leftovers. I was angry with myself for losing my temper like that but never in my life has anyone treated my opinions so poorly, so rudely. And I’m not in the habit of lying down and taking that from anyone. let alone my family. That’s not how I was raised. It took me about a half hour to calm down to join the table again. For about 15 minutes they would pause when I spoke. I threw in a few jabs “apologizing” for speaking, interrupting their “boys club”. But eventually they ignored all three of us women, even if we yelled. It was very frustrating.

I thought Mum would be mad, after all I did swear at her father but she and Beth both expressed sympathy. Although neither one of them felt that they could get into the fight, I thrown myself into, they both felt I was in my rights to do what I did. Mum said they were acting like assholes. Beth said they were sexist jerks who hate women.

The rest of thanksgiving was uneventful. Thank goodness.