In an annual pilgrimage, a group of guys in Chatham-Kent get chauffeured to Detroit to watch the Lions play in their Thanksgiving Day game.
Some go to Ford Field to watch the action live, while others view the game from the comfort of nearby watering holes.
We gathered last Thursday in the pre-dawn darkness, boarding our rides as the clock struck seven.
After a stop at the duty-free shop on the way over, our convoy fell apart, however, as the driver that knew how to best get to our parking lot destination left us in his dust. We wound up on the wrong side of Woodward Avenue – with the Thanksgiving Day parade crawling down the street right in front of us.
We were in a limousine on a tight two-lane street. Our turnaround wasn’t a simple three-point turn. More like a 33-point turn. But we soon got away from that chaos, didn’t run over a family of four, found a freeway under Woodward and eventually made our way to the tailgate destination.
We enjoyed a catered early lunch and stood around in the light snow just enjoying the day, discussing football, the state of the world and our corner of it, food, you name it.
We thought we were pretty smart with the catered lunch, but then I took a look in the parking spot behind us. Occupying that space was a framed tent-like structure that had tarpaulins on three sides and a roof. Inside that cozy little shelter were two couples and their propane heater. And their Thanksgiving dinner.
These people had used one of those turkey deep fryers and were enjoying a wonderful turkey meal, complete with cranberry sauce and all the trimmings – in a parking lot.
And they were nice and toasty thanks to their heater. Heck, it even warmed the asphalt. When I stepped in there, my feet were the happiest parts of my body.
All too soon, it was game time, and everyone split up, with one crew heading to the field and the rest of us heading indoors.
More stories and laughter.
As we hit two other spots that afternoon, we lost one fellow for a time. He literally just vanished. We searched the establishment and then looked in the limousine, but to no avail.
He magically materialized at our planned rendezvous point, looking quite refreshed.
Finally, with everyone accounted for, we headed back across the border, stopping in Windsor for dinner, and then settled in for the ride back to reality.
I kissed my wife and daughter goodnight before retiring to the recliner to catch the end of the late football game. I think I saw maybe five minutes of that one before dozing off.
Long day. Lots of laughs. Can’t wait for next year.
Busy elves
As Jim and I were out of the office on Thursday, our staff members were busy – pranking us. In their free time, that afternoon, they Christmas-pimped our desks.
I rolled into the office Friday morning, to be greeted by a sparkle-covered desk, with red bows tied everywhere and “snow” draped over my chair with a Santa hat on top.
All I could do was stare and laugh. Nice.
As I pulled the snow off my chair – the same stuff we used in the Santa parade a couple of weeks ago, more sparkles fell onto the chair.
Once some of the jingling bells and red bows were out of the way, I took a napkin and wiped off my desk. But it was still very sparkly, so I pulled out the canned air keyboard cleaner and tried to hose down my desk and chair.
Still sparkly.
Sigh.
Of course, I wore black on Friday and shimmered wherever I went, as the sparkles seemed to be attracted by my shirt.
As for Jim, they gift-wrapped his chair and monitor, put silver tinsel everywhere and even changed his desktop image to that of the Grinch.
I really love the folks here at The Voice. They all have great/demented senses of humour.
Apparently, they all love Christmas too. Ad rep Chris Courtis actually was in the office by 7 a.m. Thursday to decorate his desk area. The guy has a string of lights across the front and down the side of the desk. I didn’t notice them until he came in and turned them on! They had been hidden behind all the tinsel he hung on them.
Hilarious.
