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Hi there, this is Mark Salinger, producer of the Moth Podcast. Today, we wanted to give you something a little special, a treasured episode from our archives, a fun Thanksgiving romp for everybody still recovering from the holiday. Remember, if you'd like to listen to our now 26-year library of moth stories, check out our story archive at themoth.org. Just click the stories banner. Without further ado, here's Dan Kennedy.
Welcome to the Moth Podcast. I'm Dan Kennedy, and it's the day after Thanksgiving. So we are hoping that you enjoyed yourselves yesterday. Many of you, I'm sure, have holiday traditions. And I think probably the repetitive nature of tradition can be really quite comforting. That's what today's story from Adam Lynn is all about. I'm a huge fan myself of tradition. I mean, tradition.
the holidays sure but even on a random tuesday i don't think you'll find me doing really anything much different than i've done on a random tuesday over the last 20 or 30 years adam shared his story at a recent main stage at lincoln center and the theme of the night was blinded by the light here's adam lynn live at the moth so i met my wife juju on the subway well almost
We actually met online, but when I showed up for that first date, she took one look at me and said, "Oh my God, you're the guy from the A train." And it turned out she'd been seeing me for months and months, up around 190th Street. And she used to sit there looking at me, she later admitted to me, and she used to think to herself, "You know, that guy looks like he might make a pretty nice boyfriend." Me? A nice boyfriend?
I certainly didn't think so. At that point in my life, I was this 40-year-old blind single dad just trying to figure things out. And I was very, very grumpy because I was supporting myself as a waiter. I was waiting tables at a novelty restaurant in Times Square. This was a place where people ate in the pitch black.
And I would go from table to table and say, you know, "Use your other senses and don't be afraid." So that's who I was. Now, this juju person thinks I might look like a nice boyfriend for her.
She's a doctor. And she grew up in Brazil. She traveled the world extensively before settling in Mozambique where she built clinics from the ground up that have literally prolonged the lives of tens of thousands of people suffering with HIV/AIDS. And she speaks five languages, and she dances a mean samba, and she's warm, and she's funny, and she's very, very beautiful.
So you're thinking, "Oh, she's way out of this guy's league." Right? So, yeah, okay, I know what you're thinking. But while we were dating, fate intervened, and we unexpectedly got pregnant. So then it was only a matter of just smuggling my underwear and my CDs and my books, one at a time in her apartment. So she got so used to me and my daughter Zoe kind of just being around that marriage felt inevitable. And we got married, and that was great.
But it is not always easy being married to Wonder Woman. Because she's always flying off somewhere or doing something very unexpected to the point where it can drive me a little crazy. Like, you know, the first time her mom was coming up from Brazil, she's like, "Okay, yeah, you know, my mom's gonna stay for 10 days. It'll be a little tight. It's a small apartment." Eleven weeks later, her mom is still there in the apartment. And then the night, she came to me in tears.
Very upset and I couldn't imagine what was wrong and she asked me if I was having an affair I'd left my email open and she saw this woman's name again and again and again. Who was this Rosetta Stone? Rosetta Stone the language software I was using so I could learn Portuguese to speak to her dad down in Brazil I was gonna be meeting him for the first time not face to face
but over Skype. You see, he was getting a new computer, he was getting broadband, and I made a plan: Thanksgiving's coming up, let's have him Skype in, we'll put the computer on the table, and he can join us as a family. And I had an ulterior motive, because I'm actually a pretty good cook.
When I was a kid, I lost my eyesight, and my aunt Rita, who's a wonderful chef, she's a professional chef, she said, "Listen, there's some things you can't do, because you can't see, but there's so many more things you can if you just put your mind to it, and I'll teach you how to cook." And she did, and I've had that skill in my back pocket my whole life. So my idea was, I would make a Thanksgiving dinner like I'd done before with the big turkey and the sides, and it would look really nice, and my father-in-law in Brazil would be really impressed.
So, Thanksgiving was about a week away, I was planning menus, I was in my element, and I could tell Juju wasn't feeling it. And I said, "Honey, you know, this is gonna be great. I'm gonna make the pumpkin risotto with chestnuts and fresh sage. You'll like that." No response. "I'm gonna do the homemade cranberry sauce with ginger and Meyer lemon zest." Remember last year, that was a hit. I said, "Juju, honey, what can I do to make you happy?" She said, "I want a pig." For a pet? I mean, what do you mean you want a pig? She's like, "No."
"You know, I'm so excited about my father calling and everything. I don't want some boring, dry old turkey. I want a pig, a whole pig. When I was a little girl, I'd go to my grandmother's farm and she'd help me, let me pick out a piglet and she'd kill it and cook it and we'd eat it. And it was so nice and I want that feeling." I said, "I am not cooking you a pig in a Manhattan apartment. I wouldn't even know where to start. My mom is coming from Boston, friends are coming. We're having a turkey."
She accused me of being inflexible. Then a couple days later, she's at work at the hospital. I can hear all the noise in the background. And she says, listen, I found a pig online. I bought it. Don't say anything. And it was one of those moments you have in a marriage quite often where I could either keep fighting or give in. And then I gave in. And that's how I found myself today.
Day before Thanksgiving, with the girls, two and four, Zoe and Isabel, we're down in the West Village. They're in their Bugaboo Double Stroller, which is this giant monstrosity. And I walk into this little old-time vintage butcher shop, and I'm, hey, I'm the guy, I'm here for the pig. And the butcher's like, oh man, you know, because of the holiday and everything, your pig never showed up.
And I'm thinking, thank you, Jesus. I am getting my turkey, right? He's like, but don't worry. I actually have another pig for you. It's not the fresh pig that you ordered, but it's a bigger pig. It's frozen. And he hands me a 22-pound block of...
of ice, which is a frozen dead pig, and I can feel these long, twisted limbs with hooves, sharp hooves on the end, and the head and the snout. It was a gargoyle, okay? And I walk out of the butcher shop, and Juju's there with the girls, and I'm trying to shield my daughters from the pig, and they're all excited. I said, Juju...
on earth are we going to get home? Because the bugaboo is too big to get in a taxi or the subway. And she's like, oh, no problem at all. Just throw the pig in the carriage. We'll push it home. You want me to put this dead pig in the stroller with our children? Oh, yeah, why not? And that's how I found myself
Down on my knees, and I'm pulling diapers and wipes and cracked sippy cups and crumpled bags of goldfish crackers out from under the stroller. And the goldfish are spilling, and I'm crushing them under my knees as I jam this 22-pound dead pig in under my kids, and it doesn't fit. It doesn't fit all the way. The legs and the head are kind of rearing out like it wants to escape.
We turn and we're walking up 6th Avenue, a couple of quiet blocks, and my older daughter Zoe says, "Daddy?" "Yes, my love?" "The pig?" "Yes, my love?" "Is making my bum cold." "Yes, my love, we'll hurry, I promise." And we get back to the apartment,
And my mom is there, and she hates the pig. And she's like, "What are you gonna do with that thing? You can't put a frozen pig in the oven. It'll stay frozen in the middle. It'll burn on top. You'll burn down the apartment." I said, "Mom, I am not going to burn down the apartment. I'm going to thaw it in the sink." And I bring the pig to the sink. It's a small apartment. Sink is about two feet across. Pig's about three and a half feet long. Not even close. I stand there for a second.
I think, I know what I'm going to do. I draw a warm bath, and I slip the pig in. So, you know, it's New York. You don't have a lot of space. The rest of the day, you want to use the bathroom. Whoop, there's the pig, staring you in the face, right? So next day is Thanksgiving. I get up early. I go to check. The pig has thawed. Okay, that's good. I wrestle it into this big aluminum tray. I don't really want to touch it. It's about the size of a couch cushion, maybe. Once it's in the tray, I remove one of the racks from the oven, and I jam it in.
And a couple hours go by, and the house is smelling pretty good. And we got some pies going, we got all kinds of... It's like, okay, you know what? This might actually work. And so we're going to eat at four. That's when my father-in-law was going to call in.
So a little bit before that, I step in the bedroom, and I'm thinking, I've picked out a shirt and a jacket and a tie that I'm going to put on because I want to look really nice for my father-in-law. And while I'm kind of standing there at my closet, my daughter comes to the door and says, Daddy, there's some black smoke in the apartment. And I run out, and I go to the kitchen, and I open up the oven. Pig is on fire. So...
I grab a dish towel and I get the flames out on the head. One of the instructions was make sure you wrap the ears in foil before you insert the pig in the oven. I had neglected to do that and the ears burn and they're like two blackened bat wings kind of sticking out of the side of the pig and a turkey never would have done this, right? So I grab a roll of foil and I wrap the pig's head. It's four o'clock. It's game time.
I grab the pig, I bring it to the table that we put in the middle of the living room, and the table is beautiful. We have flowers and candles, and in the middle, the computer. And I settle the pig down in front of the laptop, and we Skype my father-in-law in Brazil. And in my best Rosetta Stone Portuguese, I say, "Bom dia, senhor Silva. Porco grande." Which means, "Good day, Mr. Silva, big pig." All those lessons, that was the best I could come up with,
Please, please cut me some slack. I was unraveling. I had a terrible looking pig on the table. I was wearing a greasy t-shirt with holes in it, meeting my father-in-law. And all I could think was, the only good thing about this holiday is it will end. And at some point tonight, I can get into bed and pull the blanket over my head, and this will be over. And then I noticed Juju, on the other hand, is like this...
balloon of joy. She is so happy. She's full of light and energy, and she's taking pictures of the kids with the pig, and she's taking the computer and moving it around the pig like a film director, getting it from every angle. And her father is loving this. And we sit down, and we start eating, and I'm surrounded by languages, and my kids are having a great time, and my mom's, she's having some more roast pork, she's having a great time. And I had a moment.
I wouldn't call it a revelation. I still am who I am. But I had a moment, and I thought, "My Brazilian wife certainly understands this American holiday a lot better than I do, because Thanksgiving's not about turkey. It's about family. And family's about love. And love is ultimately about change." And I had been resisting change at every turn. But if you're not willing to change, if you're not willing to give something up, you're never going to get anything new.
And I thought, "What did Juju give up to be here at this table?" She gave up her country and her language and her mom and her dad to start a new family with me. So later that night when we were clearing up and I knew no one was around, I brought what was left of the pig out to the kitchen, and I leaned into that little aluminum foil-wrapped ear, and I said, "Thank you, thank you, thank you, and thank you."
Adam Lynn is an author and essayist who writes about family and social justice. His piece entitled The Blind Man's French Dog Problem recently appeared in the New York Times. He's currently working on his memoir, Showing Up, which explores the challenges of growing up without a father, going blind, and eventually becoming a father himself. He lives in Manhattan with his wife, Juju, daughters, Zoe and Isabel, and their lovable but intensely codependent German shepherd, Nadia.
If you've got a story of your own, you can find the open mic story slam series that we do nearest you and throw your name in the hat. That way we get to hear your story. You can find details on all of our upcoming events at themoth.org. We hope to see you soon at a slam. And as always from everyone here at The Moth, we hope you have a story worthy week.
Dan Kennedy is the author of Loser Goes First, Rock On, and American Spirit. He's also a regular host and storyteller with The Moth. Podcast production by Emily Couch and Vicki Merrick. The Moth podcast is presented by PRX, the public radio exchange, helping make public radio more public at PRX.org.
