I'm nothing if not domestically helpful, so I've detailed a precise countdown to begin preparing Thanksgiving dinner for those of you planning to cook this Thursday.

Monday:

--Put something other than "Turkey" and "Reddi-Whip" on your store list.

--Make sure your table linens are freshly laundered and pressed.

--Buy an iron.

--In the iron aisle, see that they have brand new table cloths and matching napkins which will be the closest you ever come to finding 8 in your linen closet that match, so buy it.

--Realize you forgot your coupon at home and sales don't start until Friday, so pay three times the regular retail price for new Thanksgiving linens.

--Come home and realize your new tablecloth is the exact same pattern as the two you already have in there.

--Spread on the table and hope the pre-fold creases smooth themselves out by Thursday.

Tuesday:

--Wake up early to beat the crowds at the grocery store.

--Circle the parking lot at 8 am a dozen times searching for a spot because every other patron in the metropolitan area had the same thought of coming early.

--Fight your way through produce. By now there will only be one cranberry left on the floor. It’ll have to serve 10, it's a miracle food.

--Try to find a turkey over 4 milligrams. You won't be able to, as they've all been picked over by now. Substitute 12 Jenny-O turkey breasts and some kitchen twine.

--Come home with every intention of beginning food preparations early, but fall asleep watching Food Network instead.

--Try not to read too much into the dream about Alton Brown.

Wednesday:

--Wake up early and start cooking! Bake pies, chop vegetables and keep checking to see if the turkey is going to be defrosted by tomorrow.

--Program the turkey hotline into your cell phone.

--Program the poison control hotline into your cell phone.

--See if you can use the still-frozen-solid turkey to smooth out the tablecloth wrinkles that remain.

Thursday:

--Wake-up early and start cooking.

--With fear and trepidation, check to see if turkey has defrosted.

--Google "Trichinosis"

--Curse yourself for not having a second oven installed.

--Try to fit turkey, sweet potatoes, stuffing, vegetables and apple pie into the oven at the same time.

--Marvel at the physics that cause the oven temperature to drop to negative five degrees with all of that food in there.

--Roast yams over open-pit fire.

--Repeat annual culinary debate with Uncle on the merits of chunky cranberry sauce verses jellied cans. And the difference between a yam and sweet potato. And dressing and stuffing. And that mincemeat as a pie filling is just sick and wrong, but someday when your taste buds are mature, you'll pretend that you like it too.

--Program the family counselor's hotline into your cell phone.

--Try to time all of the 45 dishes to be placed down on the table precisely at halftime of the first football game.

--Stop swearing at your husband.

--Gather around the wrinkled and unevenly cooked table and give thanks. The turkey still isn't done, so plan on serving it with dessert.

--Pretend you planned it that way.

--Say that turkey is bad for you anyway, and it's filled with nebulous hormones that make you sleep and urinate blood. It also causes erectile dysfunction.

--Tell your Uncle that you read it on someone's blog.

--Tell him that you don't remember the exact URL, but you'll email him the link.

--Unfriend your Uncle on Facebook

--While the men go in to watch football and unsnap their pants, you and the x-chromosome types get busy on those dishes. You forgot to put dish soap on the store list, so rub them with a healthy dose of hand sanitizer and Dora the Explorer Bubble Bath.

--Serve pumpkin pie and turkey meringues at 10 p.m.

--Make leftover turkey sandwiches at 10:04.

--When your Uncle comes out of the bathroom and reports that "the pipes are all clear!" tell him on second thought it wasn't turkey that gives you ED, it's mincemeat pie.

Friday: (You may think the holiday has ended but since you just finished washing the last pickle fork 15 minutes ago, you might as well go shopping at 4 a.m. on Black Friday anyway.)

--Fight your way to the linen aisle where you discover that your Thanksgiving tablecloths have been put on clearance for 64 cents.

--If you have a special coupon, they throw in a new iron.

--You don't have a coupon.

--Buy 4 anyway.

--Return home, delete al of the Snopes.com emails from your Uncle, collapse in tears; fight the urge to drink the leftover vanilla extract (you'll need it for Christmas.)

--Begin defrosting the turkey for next year.

You're welcome. Happy Thanksgiving, ya'll.

©2009 Tracey Henry

Divamail me your Thanks!