Thanksgiving, North America's favourite secular holiday, is almost upon us.
We Canucks celebrate a month earlier than our southern neighbours and each family celebrates in its own style. For instance, some Canadian hosts will serve turkey while others will serve two turkeys. There will be stuffing, cranberries, mashed potatoes, and traffic. That's another hallmark of this autumnal celebration. Long, frustrating trips back home for the pitched gastrointestinal struggle we call Thanksgiving.
That may be where the name comes from. Thanksgiving is not a day to be grateful for the bounty and abundance of the fall harvest. It's a day to give thanks for the fact we only have to make this hellacious trip once a year; okay, twice if you celebrate Christmas; okay, three times if you do Easter.
Are you ready? Is the car filled with gas? Have you bought your bus ticket? Are you set to almost miss your flight? Take the Road Sage Thanksgiving Day Driving Quiz to find out. Choose the correct answer.
1. You plan to leave at dawn on Saturday morning hoping to avoid traffic. Your plan will fail because …
a) A city works department bureaucrat who is not on speaking terms with any of his extended family decided to the best time to do construction on the highway out of town was Saturday morning on a long weekend.
b) Oh, you'll beat traffic. You will sing the body electric as you cruise. Then from the back seat, a tiny voice will be heard. "I have to pee." You'll stop at a service station and, by the time you are back on the road, the common herd will have caught up with you.
c) You will be caught in pre-dawn traffic because everyone else has the same plan.
2. Your flight home for Thanksgiving will take 56 minutes. How long will your commute to the airport take?
a) 124 minutes
b) The commute will take around an hour. Then two to three hours in security and customs and then the flight will be delayed. That's why I've decided to drive instead.
c) That depends on whether or not there's a God.
3. You've decided to leave the driving to someone else and take the bus. By the end of your journey, the tiny onboard toilet will look like …
a) Someone sneaked a suitcase full of excrement on board and then smeared it everywhere but the toilet. And then covered it in urine.
b) Not sure. Rather than find out, I held my pee for three hours.
c) A man is born alone and dies alone; and he experiences the good and bad consequences of his karma alone; and he goes alone to hell or the supreme abode or to the toilet on a bus bound for Kamloops.
4. As you drive toward your Thanksgiving destination, you notice that your fellow drivers ...
a) Talk on cellphones while driving.
b) Talk on cellphones while texting on iPads while driving.
c) Talk on cellphones while texting on iPads while eating chicken from KFC Go Cups while driving.
d) You don't notice too much. You're busy talking on your cellphone while texting on your iPad while eating chicken from a KFC Go Cup while driving.
5. There is construction on every highway and road you take because …
a) Orange is the colour of fall and transport planners wanted to spruce things up and make them festive.
b) Every road you take is broken.
c) Everyone everywhere is out to get you.
d) All of the above.
6. What is the "Turkey Tailgate"?
a) When you drive six inches behind someone's bumper at 110 km/h because you believe that this will get you to Windsor, Ont., sooner.
b) When you drive six inches behind someone's bumper at 110 km/h because you are so hungry you think the car in front of you is a giant turkey and you want to eat it.
c) A jerk move that drivers pull all the time, but since it's Thanksgiving it seems extra stupid.
7. The appropriate number of turkey sandwiches for the drive home is …
a) Two sandwiches per vehicle occupant.
b) Eight – regardless of how many occupants in the vehicle.
c) Three sandwiches per adult and two per child under 12 years old.
d) You can never have enough turkey sandwiches.
8. The drive home on Thanksgiving Monday will be a horrific ordeal because …
a) You will be so stuffed your veins will feel as if they are filled with cranberry sauce. Staying awake will be a challenge.
b) You will have to spend the entire trip doing a play-by-play recap of every stupid/insulting/offensive remark made by someone to whom you are related.
c) A fender-bender or accident will clog highway resulting in 10- to 11-hour delays. Think: "The Donner Party" except no one's hungry, just angry.
d) That just how Thanksgiving rolls.
Correct Answers
1-c; 2-c; 3-b; 4-d; 5-a; 6-a; 7-d; 8-d
Score one mark for each correct answer.
What your score says about you
- 1-3 – You’re either young or you don’t have a driver’s licence.
- 4-6 – Not bad. You’ve had your share of stuffing and traffic jams.
- 7 – You’re the kind of person who can eat an entire turkey leg while driving down Highway 401. Congratulations.
- 8 – You win. Next year, have Thanksgiving dinner at your place. You deserve it.
- *****
Follow Andrew Clark on Twitter: @aclarkcomedy
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Andrew Clark