The REAL Reason I Am Not Yet Married. It All Goes Back To One Thanksgiving...

My cousin Jessica and me

I always loved holidays as a child, especially Thanksgiving, when fall hung crisply in the air, and my entire crew of relatives packed into Aunt Martha's white, A-framed house, each family bringing a dish or two, until her crowded kitchen was filled with abundant aromas of enough food to feed a person for days. After a huge lunch and a brief pause while everyone sat around relaxing until their bodies could hold some chess squares or chocolate mousse for dessert, the day was filled with laughter and talking, games and reminiscing. When the early nighttime came, the cozy glow of soothing yellow lamplight filled the little house at Aunt Martha's.

Aunt Martha and Uncle Steve's daughter, Jessica, was just nine months behind me in age, so we grew up like sisters. Much like me, every year she became so excited for the big day---so excited that she always asked her mom if I could spend the night with her the Wednesday night before Thanksgiving and already be at her house to wake up there the next morning. This was our tradition, year after year, from childhood through our teen years---packing my bags and going to the Wednesday evening community Thanksgiving service with her family, heading the few blocks to her house where her mom had banana nut bread waiting for us as a snack, falling into a relaxed sleep, waking up and getting ourselves ready for the festivities while the sounds of the Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade filled the background.

The Thanksgiving season at age 19 was bittersweet for me: Jessica was engaged to be married the following year---this would be our final Thanksgiving Eve sleepover. I felt excited and happy for her upcoming wedding, yet sad at the closure of our yearly traditions and all the other closeness of our cousin-friendship.

I fell asleep at her house that Wednesday night, my mind filled with thoughts of how our lifelong friendship would soon change and, although I'd hoped to sleep in a bit Thanksgiving morning, I awoke at 7:30 needing to make a trip to the bathroom. While their house was two-story, it was an older, country-style house with very small rooms, and the only bathroom was a tiny one downstairs. After lying in bed a few more minutes, I realized I couldn't ignore it and began to groggily make the trip downstairs to use the bathroom.

I reached the bottom of the steps in the tiny den and started to turn towards the little hallway in front of the bathroom, which was actually just a square space so small it could've been more accurately described as a foyer. But I stopped dead in my tracks there in the den and blinked my eyes. Then rubbed them, and blinked again, hoping the image standing in that little hallway was a figment of my early morning, blurry-eyed grogginess. There, in front of me, in that little foyer hallway, stood my uncle. But not my uncle as I usually see him---it was my uncle, alright---but my uncle in all his glory. Bare-skinned. In the nude. His unclothed, uncovered birthday suit. Au naturel. Buck naked. I blinked and rubbed my eyes again, hoping I could wake myself up from this nightmare. What I saw before me was a nightmare, alright, but it was all real. What else could I do? I turned around, buzzed through that tiny den, and began a mad dash at lightning speed up those steep, old stairs. My Aunt Martha, who was washing dishes at the kitchen sink, later described that she heard a noise, "turned around, and there was Misty---crawling up the stairs on her hands and knees." Trying desperately to get the heck out of there.

I walked despairingly to my cousin's upstairs room, where she was still sleeping, and woke her slightly with a moan. "Jessica," I whispered, groaning and lamenting, "I saw your dad---naked! I need counseling!"

I forgot all about needing to go to the bathroom.

When she and I arose from bed an hour-and-a-half or so later, nothing was said about that morning's misadventure. In fact, nothing was said about it as the relatives arrived, as we enjoyed a bountiful meal led by a beautiful prayer, and as we all sat chatting in the small living room afterward.

But later, as the day wore on....it was just too hard to keep secret. And finally, at some point in a humorous conversation, when I was already doubled over laughing from another story someone had just told, I made the sudden intro:

"So.....I woke up kind of early this morning..."

And as the story came out, the room erupted in fits of laughter and curious, teasing questions, while Uncle Steve defensively tried to describe his actions: "Well, I was about to take a bath and already had the water running, then I could hear on TV the recap of a ballgame, so I stepped back out in the hall to check the score." But the laughter and jokes just wouldn't stop.

Since I am usually the one who gets "picked on" and am usually the one people enjoy teasing and joking around with, I kind of like having this story up my sleeve. It's like having some "ammo"---if anyone starts ribbing me too much about anything, all I have to do is start with, "Hey! Do you remember that Thanksgiving year when I was 19 and I spent the night over here?"

And the story picks itself right back up again,
while relatives cackling with laughter ask,
"Misty, were you traumatized?"

And I always answer with a straight face and a shrug of my shoulders,
"Well. Hey...I'm still not married."

And that, my friends, is perhaps the real reason
I am a month and a half away from my 36th birthday
and still in the never-been-married category.

;)