A WING AND A PRAYER

ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED BY THE SOMERS RECORD (11-25-21)- Please remember small business in your town during this coronavirus pandemic


     For your sake I hope not, but you might be thinking the same thing I am: how is that damned supply chain going to screw up my Thanksgiving this year? I'm perfectly capable of screwing any holiday up just fine all by myself without any help from the supply chain. The good news is that I've never had something so convenient and pervasive to blame things on before, and I'm making pretty good use of it. I missed the easiest overhead on the doubles tennis court the other day, and I blamed it on the supply chain. "Did you see that shot?" I complained. "I don't know if any of you have noticed, but I can't get good tennis balls right now because they come from the Azores, and nothing is flying in or out of there for the last 15 months." My opponent correctly pointed out, "You've been missing the same easy overhead for 20 years and your balls never had anything to do with it until today."

     One thing you might not get this year is the proper sized turkey for your gathering. If you ordered it from Turkey, there is a labor shortage there right now. Last Thanksgiving no one was really in the mood to fly and family gatherings were smaller. So we were able to find more paltry poultry, enough to feed ourselves and a few vegans with an iron deficiency. This year however, our group is going to be considerably larger, and unless we order that bird right now, I picture it sitting in a shipping container somewhere off the coast of San Diego for three weeks, waiting for President Biden to get out there in a pair of overalls and unload it with a cargo hook.

     This year, for some weird reason related to the supply chain, you can only get big turkeys. I don't know if my family is going to be large enough for all those giblets. I might have to invite family members I barely remember, like, say, my first cousin once-removed. Hopefully he wasn't removed for anything serious. I'm going to need a bigger dining room table, but it's impossible to get dining room tables these days because they come primarily from Vietnam, and I'm not sure if we ever actually ended the war with them.

     I see turkeys in the woods sometimes on our property, and maybe one will just walk over and plop himself in my oven where it's nice and warm. I'll leave the door open with a note about how to turn on the light. Once it does it's just a matter of getting my family to arrive from various points of the compass, but I picture them sitting in a shipping container off the coast of San Diego. The ones who are coming by airplane have it the worst. Flying these days is not for the faint-of-heart, and that's why it seems like only the annoying-of-heart are in an airplane right now. The airlines are understaffed, cancellations are rampant and travelers are on their last frayed nerve. It's hard to get a five year-old to wear a mask, and even harder to get an adult who acts like a five year-old to wear one. I feel sorry for flight attendants, who were already part aviation expert, part usher, part waitress, and I guess you can add part bouncer to the list now.

     Tom Hayes, the CEO of Ocean Spray has warned that while cranberries will be abundant this year, the prices will be higher due to an increased cost of plastic and aluminum. And I just know that if I can find cranberries that don't contain plastic and aluminum, it will somehow cost even more.

     There are workarounds, of course. One obvious answer is to outsource some or all of your dinner to a local restaurant. It helps them out during this difficult period, and leaves you more time to argue with your family about how rarely they visit, even though all you do is argue when they visit. This solution kills two birds with one stone, three counting the turkey. If you need stuffing, try old newspapers. Be creative with the vegetables. Brussels sprouts are plentiful this season, if you think your family doesn't visit quite rarely enough.

     They're sorry for your inconvenience, but companies are going to have to pass all these delays, shortfalls and price increases along to the consumer. They're passing just about everything they don't like along to the consumer, and we're going to get stuck with it unless we can think of someone else to pass it along to. I plan to be consuming plenty this Thanksgiving, and the only thing I want someone to pass along to me is the gravy.