Rumble @ The Cheesecake Factory

Sometimes you gotta pour an Arnold Palmer into your Mom's Fish & Chips at The Cheesecake Factory.

It started with a simple text.

“Any plan for Thanksgiving? We would like to help. Please advise.” said my Father.

I imagine this text would be benign in most family group chats, but it’s objectively a Molotov Cocktail in ours. I’ll explain why.

1. Thanksgiving Was Initially Rejected

   1. From the age of 6, I asked my parents if we would be doing Thanksgiving. It looked like a cool holiday where American families came together to eat turkey, stuffing, pie, watch the Lions in the early game and the team formerly known as the Redskins play the Cowboys in the afternoon game.

      1. My parents’ response was a resounding “no”. They’d laugh at me for wanting to be “American” in their words, which was funny because I was born here. The closest we got were these diabolical Hungry Man Thanksgiving Microwave Meals.

2. I Persevered

   1. In 1998, at the age of 16, I had lived enough life to dr…