Thanksgiving: A Questionnaire for Dinner Guests

We're so happy you've decided to spend Thanksgiving dinner with us! In order to ensure the dinner proceeds as smoothly as possible, we ask that you please take a moment to complete the following questionnaire. Mark your answers clearly with a Number 2 pencil, and return this form to your hosts at your earliest convenience. Gobble, gobble!

I. Background

Gender:
          □ Male          
          □ Female
          □ It's complicated

Marital status:
          □ Single
          □ Married
          □ Divorced
          □ To be resolved during the course of the dinner

The person I am bringing to your Thanksgiving dinner would best be classified as a:
          □ Friend
          □ Date
          □ Spouse
          □ Prostitute hired for the occasion
          □ Prison official
          □ Custodian of the court
          □ Psychiatrist
          □ Imaginary

I am attending this dinner because:
          □ I am somehow related to you.
          □ I am trying to escape my own family and/or prison.
          □ I have nowhere better to go.
          □ The voices in my head told me to.
 

II. Children Attending the Dinner

General Amount:
          □ 1
          □ 2-5
          □ Enough to gather in packs

Traits:
          □ Have peculiar names
          □ Shouldn't be looked at
          □ Have psychic abilities, and are able to communicate with "the beyond"
          □ Really, really shouldn't be looked at
          □ Capable of setting things on fire

Primary education:
          □ Montessori
          □ Ashram
          □ Free range

Secondary education:
          □ Public/Private School          
          □ Military Academy
          □ Ringling Brothers Barnum & Bailey Circus

College education:
          □ Ivy League
          □ Non-Ivy League
          □ ITT Technical Institute
          □ Cosmetological Studies
          □ Vassar/The New School
 

III. Pets

          □ I have a pet.
          □ I have more than one pet.
          □ I will be forcing you to look at photographs of my pet(s).
          □ I won't need to show you photographs, because I've decided to bring all my pets along with me! (Please continue to the next section.)
 

IV. Pets Attending the Dinner

The pet(s) attending your Thanksgiving dinner will be:
          □ Eating at the table as though it were a real person
          □ Eating at the table because it is a real person
          □ Dressed in a holiday-themed outfit
          □ Wonderful with the children, despite its being:
                    □ Very loud                    
                    □ Very poisonous          
                    □ Known for devouring children whole
 

V. Dietary Restrictions & Weirdnesses I will only be eating food that is:

          □ Organic
          □ Raw
          □ Local
          □ Better than what you're going to be serving
          □ Vegan
          □ Vegetarian
          □ Pollotarian
          □ Pescetarian
          □ Pluscuamperfectotarian
          □ Macrobiotic
          □ Microbiotic
          □ Micro-microbiotic (e.g., pollen, dust)
          □ Itsybitsyteenyweenyyellowpolkadotbikinibiotic
          □ Historical food trend mentioned in the last issue of some magazine you read:
                    □ Iron Age
                    □ Frontier Age
                    □ Epcot's Space Mountain
                    □ Neanderthal
                    □ Jurassic
                    □ Elizabethan
                    □ Aztec
                              □ With human sacrifice
                              □ Without human sacrifice
                    □ Django Reinhardt
 

VI. The Turkey Turkey's upbringing:
          □ Hormone/Antibiotic-free
          □ Cage-free
          □ Free-market
          □ Libertarian
          □ Gender-neutral
          □ Studied Renaissance French Literature during its semester abroad

Turkey's preparation:
          □ Baked
          □ Grilled
          □ Deep fried
          □ Refried
          □ Re-refried
          □ Re-re-refried -- in butter
          □ Freeze dried
          □ Pureed
          □ Tartare
  VII. Thanksgiving Accompaniments Holiday-specific items that must be at the dinner:
          □ Cranberry Sauce
          □ Green Beans
          □ Stuffing
          □ Antacid
          □ Sweet Potatoes
          □ Mashed Potatoes
          □ More Antacid
          □ Breast Milk
          □ Xanax
          □ Tranquillizer Darts

Pie preference:
          □ Apple
          □ Cherry
          □ Pumpkin
          □ Pecan
          □ Human
                    □ Part of our Aztec-specific historical trend diet
                    □ A Titus Andronicus inspired resolve to the whole evening
                    □ Reason for psychiatric and/or criminal imprisonment

VIII. Beverages I like to drink:
          □ Wine, with the meal
                    □ Anything in a bottle
                    □ Anything in a box
          □ Hard alcohol, after the meal
                    □ Lots and lots and lots
          □ Less traditional beverages, whenever nobody's looking
                    □ Dayquil/Nyquil
                    □ Nail Polish Remover
                    □ Paint Thinner
                    □ Windex
  IX. General Post-Dinner Behavior I will be forcing you to watch:
          □ The Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade
          □ The NFL Thanksgiving Classic
          □ A Ken Burns documentary on my historical food preferences

When the meal is over, I like to:
          □ Help you clean up
          □ Watch you clean up
          □ Give advice on how you should clean up while I'm watching you clean up
          □ Watch my scullery maid give you advice on how to clean up while we watch you clean up

Please select as many as apply:
          □ I have slept with someone else at the table.
          □ I have slept with most everyone else at the table.
          □ There is something slightly off about me.
          □ I am really, really, really into the holiday spirit, and like to sing songs about it.
          □ I am now, or have once been, a Wiccan.

In terms of my professional and/or personal achievements, I will be:           
          □ Boastful in an intolerable sort of way
          □ Humble in an intolerable sort of way

I will be passive-aggressively referring to:
          □ My salary
          □ Bad investments
          □ Poor career moves
          □ Failed relationships
          □ A missing child

I find it acceptable to:
          □ Touch people inappropriately as the drinks wear on
          □ Espouse extremist political beliefs during the course of the meal
          □ Shun Western notions of clothing
          □ Tell jokes that would perhaps best be left in the 1950s
          □ Weep openly

I will be quietly judging you on:
          □ The tacky floral centerpiece you've chosen for the table
          □ The contents of your medicine cabinets
          □ The arrangement of your furniture
          □ The napkin rings
          □ Your marriage
          □ Everything

 

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