It was the same Thanksgiving bet every year.
Amber and Leslie, twin sisters and nothing alike, would each make a platter of deviled eggs, and whoever’s platter had deviled eggs leftover when the other one was empty had to clean their sister’s house once a month for a year.
They had managed to keep the bet secret from the family for ten years. Totally impartial. No suggestive selling, no consuming their own product.
One plate on either end of the large buffet table, switching sides when the football game went into halftime, just like the teams. Loser cleans the winner’s house. Simple.
The first year might have been the most fun they ever had as adult sisters. Leslie won.
It was also the year Amber got pregnant.
The next year Leslie lost and cleaned up Amber’s house twelve times but got the bonus of hanging out with her first niece.
Then Amber got pregnant again, and Jim built a man cave in the basement, where he and his buddies drank like frat boys and smoked like Columbia when Sherman was in town.
And Leslie, tweaking her concoction and trying every recipe from Martha Stewart to Eric Ripert, kept losing.
The bet got progressively less fun for Leslie, as Amber kept getting pregnant, got a Great Dane and the kids were entering the vomit and broken toy portion of their childhood.
Amber teased Leslie that she should get pregnant and catch up, but Leslie was gay and was gonna keep that one under wraps until their dad croaked, lest it kill him.
Thanksgiving approached. Leslie was not gonna lose.
She knew Amber’s Great Dane would be there. It was a slam dunk. She had the perfect recipe.
The sisters set their plates at either end of the buffet table, winked their good lucks to each other, sipped Kir Royales, and waited.
The kids took Secretariat, the Great Dane, out to the yard to play, and Leslie watched in horror as her father wolfed down five eggs made with Cesar Millan Ultra Loaf, painstakingly pureed in Yellow Dye #5 to make it look like yolks.
Hahahahhaahhaah
Hahahahahahahahahaha