The Kids' Table: A Funny Thanksgiving Left Right Story

At the Novak family Thanksgiving, there are two tables. The big table is in the dining room, on the left, with the good plates. The kids' table is in the kitchen, on the right, with paper plates and a card table that has one short leg. Danny Novak has sat at the kids' table for thirty-four years.

Danny is thirty-four years old. He has a mortgage. He has a beard. Every year he sits down at the kids' table right next to his niece, who is four, and his cousin's twins, who are seven and have a lot of opinions about him. And every year he looks left, through the doorway, at the big table, and every year Aunt Rose catches him looking.

This year was different. Uncle Gene had moved to Arizona. That meant one empty chair at the big table, the third seat on the right, and everybody knew it. Danny knew it. His cousin Kelly knew it. Kelly is thirty-six and had been at the kids' table even longer, and she showed up an hour early and sat down right in Gene's chair before anyone had taken off their coat.

Danny walked in, saw her, turned right around, and left. He came back ten minutes later with a pie. A real one, from the good bakery. He set it on the big table, on the left, right in front of Aunt Rose. It was pecan. Aunt Rose loves pecan.

Grandma sits at the head of the table, to the right of the turkey, and says it's her house. But everybody knows it's Aunt Rose who moves the place cards.

Aunt Rose looked at the pie. She looked at Kelly, sitting in the third chair on the right. She looked at Danny, standing in the doorway trying to look like a grown-up. Then she picked up Kelly's place card and moved it one seat to the left. Then she moved it right back. "We'll talk after grace," she said.

Grandpa said grace. He said it to the left side of the table first, then turned and said it again to the right side, because his hearing aid was in the wrong ear and he wasn't sure who had heard. It was a long grace. Danny's niece fell asleep at the kids' table halfway through.

Then it was time to pass the food. At the Novaks', food goes to the right. Always to the right. The etiquette books say so, and Aunt Rose says so louder. The turkey went right. The mashed potatoes went right. The stuffing went right. Then Kelly passed the green bean casserole left, by accident, and the whole table stopped.

Aunt Rose didn't say anything. She didn't have to. She just looked at the green beans, sitting on the left where green beans do not belong, and then she looked at Kelly, and then she looked through the doorway at Danny, who was passing the rolls right at the kids' table, the proper way, like a man who had been raised right.

After pie, Aunt Rose stood up with the place cards. "Next year," she said, "Danny moves up." Danny stood up so fast he knocked into the card table, and the short leg finally gave out. The cranberry sauce went left. The gravy went right. The twins cheered. His niece woke up and cheered too, without knowing why.

Kelly stayed right where she was, because she had the chair. Danny got the chair to her left, which turned out to belong to Uncle Gene's wife. She had also moved to Arizona. Nobody had noticed.

So now it's your turn to pass, the Novak way. Right. Right. Right. Left, left, because somebody always does. Right. And stop. Whatever's in front of you is yours, and so is your seat. Happy Thanksgiving.