When It Rains, It Pours - Thanksgiving Day: From Bitter to Thankful

Thanksgiving has to be one of my favorite American holidays. Family, food, football – it’s an American classic. Teaching at an international school has its benefits and disadvantages; for me, not having Thanksgiving off is a disadvantage. Americans have it right, two or three days off for a holiday all about thanks and food – who wouldn’t want that?

Anyway, my Thanksgiving morning was typical for the Philippines except for that fact that I woke up on time (5 a.m.) and left early (5:45) so that I could make it to the Middle School Thanksgiving breakfast on time (6:15). I looked forward to this breakfast all week. I hardly ever ate a real breakfast and a spread of cinnamon rolls, eggs, bacon, sausage, hash browns, fruit, and coffee would soften the blow of working on an American holiday. Purse, work and coffee in hand, I headed out the door and gate, locking everything as I left. My roommate was gone so I was going solo that morning.

I got to my car and started rifling through my purse for the car keys. About 3 minutes later, I realized that the keys were locked in the house, with my house keys. At this point, I was sitting on the ground in front of my house, in a skirt, with all the contents of my purse displayed in front of me. Ok, well decisions had to be made. I had a cell phone, right – nope, in classic Kelli fashion I left it in Meg’s car the night before. So obviously, for the next 30 minutes I attempted to break into our well-secured house. I tried climbing over the wall, no luck – flip flops don’t have very good traction. I grabbed a crowbar from the car and tried to rig the gate door – nope. I finally put a pair of jeans (I had a change of clothes for that night) over the glass on one of the walls, got one leg up and realized this was going to really hurt when I jumped and landed on the water heater.

Ok, plan B. I decided to walk to a neighbor’s house, hoping they had not left for school (unlikely since it’s 6:15) and had the spare keys. So I grabbed my coffee and headed down the hill to walk the 4 or 5 blocks to their house. As I was walking it started to rain, not hard, but enough to push me off the edge. The inner monologue started to pound my ears – how could I be so stupid? Why isn’t Meg here? I’m going to be late! I’m missing breakfast! It’s raining! I hate this country! And so on. I get to the neighbors house, they have left but the dad was at home. He called his wife and then searched for the spare keys. No luck. Spare keys at this point were already at Faith.

Ok, now what? It was about 6:45 as I started back to my house. At this point anger seemed pointless so I spent the walk changing the inner monologue to something more positive. At least I lived in a safe house that’s hard to break in to. I lived in a neighborhood where a woman could walk around safely by herself. I lived near people I know. I complained yesterday that I didn’t get to exercise in the morning. My helper was coming at 7, so I could get in the house. I worked at a place that was very considerate about these things and I had a principal who was kind and understanding. Be thankful – it was Thanksgiving after all.

I arrived back home, 5 minutes later my helper came. I sent a quick email to my principal and was out the door by 7:10, the beginning of classes. Traffic was graciously light and 40 minutes later I walked into first period to the questions of eager eighth graders trying to guess why I was late.

The rest of the day was fairly typical (I did get leftover breakfast during break) and it all lead up to a glorious Thanksgiving dinner with my extended philafam.

Lessons learned, no one was hurt and nothing was broken. Thanksgiving may not have been what expected or wanted but I did learn to give thanks in a situation that seemed pretty desperate at the time.

P.S. I'm still not quite at the laughing stage of this minor tragedy, so if you feel the need to make jokes, in words of my friends....."it's too soon." :)