Chorus:
We’ll drown it all in gravy
Thick brown gelatinous glop
Salty fatty comfort food
The perfect thing for pig slop.
Aunt Edna’s burnt the turkey;
She insisted that she cook
But the dry, disgusting mess
Turns your stomach with one look.
Your daughter’s home from college
Says she’s marrying her beau,
That worthless deadbeat pothead
With no future means to show.
And your father broke his arm
When, from on the roof, he fell
Pruning tree limbs at ninety
‘Cause he’s stubborn as all Hell.
Chorus
Aunt Edna’s mind is slipping
Like she’s put her life on pause
Between Uncle Larry’s death
And dealing with her in-laws.
She hangs out with his ashes
In an urn on the bench there –
Sometimes she’ll still talk to him,
But most times she’ll just stare.
She almost lost their mansion
To a recent kitchen fire;
Her push to host Thanksgiving
Was really quite the quagmire.
Chorus
Your daughter says she’s pregnant
And she’s dropping out of school –
They’ll move in with his parents
Where they won’t have any rules.
She thinks she’ll get a part-time
Working at the Pizza Plum’s
Making more than enough dough
For the baby when it comes.
You know it’s not that easy
Delivering hot pizzas
And that beater car won’t hold
Based on how kept up it was.
Chorus
Things have gotten so much worse
Since your mother died last spring
And you wish you’d had a grasp
On what the future would bring.
Your father named your sister
His power of attorney
Because she’ll never make him
Leave his home in Roxbury.
But you know she’s just waiting
For the old man to die off
Because she wants the estate
To keep for herself and scoff.
Chorus
Your brother-in-law’s in deep
And he says he lost his job
For sleeping with a student –
He’s head over heels for Bob.
Your husband got a pink slip
And the whole plant’s shutting down,
Since they’ve laid everyone off
There’s no other work in town.
Your doctor called yesterday
To tell you the cancer’s back
Another round of chemo
Just might get your health on track.
Chorus
Your brother-in law’s wife says
She’ll be taking all he’s got
When she sees him in court
For the divorce he hath wrought.
And, because Bob’s a minor,
It seems he’ll be doing time
For the statutory rape;
There’s no absolving the crime.
Neither of them seems to care
Much about their three kiddos
Who are now running amok
Interrupting your repose.
Chorus
Your husband’s severance package
Is just pitiful at best
And whether you laugh or cry,
You both don’t feel all that blessed.
Your husband says he’s looking
But there’s nothing he can do,
No one’s hiring in his field
Outside of Kalamazoo.
It seems you’ll wind up moving
To wherever Hell that is,
Just more shit to contend with
In the midst of all of this.
Chorus
You’d hoped that the last treatment
Would drive the cancer away
And you’d be a survivor –
Live to see another day.
But more chemotherapy
Will hopefully do the trick,
The only thing for certain
Is it’s bound to make you sick.
It’s not Thanksgiving dinner
Without drama to be had
So, drown it in brown gravy
And pretend it’s not that bad.
INSTANT NOODLES 