RED ROVER, RED ROVER, SEND ROVER RIGHT OVER!!

I invited my entire family to Thanksgiving this year. Counting my mom and my 8 siblings and their kids, that’s approximately 45 people. On Thanksgiving Day, I think I’m going to know how that little cheerleader in Washington State felt when, straightening her poster at the last moment, she got flattened by the stampeding football team.

Just kidding. My family is hands-down the funnest group of people on this earth. When we get together, it’s Norman Rockwell, eat your heart out.

No. My biggest concern is not the throngs of people squeezing into our teeny house. What I find myself fretting over is the family pet dog, Taz. Sometimes she seems sort of aggressive and frankly, this puts people off. My problem is, I like her too much to shut her up in a room all day, but I don’t like her enough to allow her to roam free and potentially bite Aunt Betty’s butt.

It’s not like we haven’t tried to warn people about Taz. This is our anthem when folks come into the house. “Ignore her. She’ll go away.”

“Ignore her. She’ll go away,” I said to my daughter’s friend the other day. But what the friend heard was, “Be sure to stick you finger in her nose; she really likes that.” SNAP!

“Ignore her. She’ll go away,” I said to our plumber. So he squatted down, patted his thigh repeatedly, and lunged to tweak the dog’s ears. Ferocious SNARL! All I could do was mutter “asshole,” and hope the plumber thought I meant the dog.

When my family comes for Thanksgiving, I could try the “Ignore her. She’ll go away” approach one more time and hope someone listens to me. Huhhh? Eight Van Houts listen to someone? Oh, that’s rich. That’s seven-minute fluffy icing rich on lemon chiffon cake. Hey, speaking of cake . . . .

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