Run Club Potluck Friendsgiving Features 19 Runners and 3 Normal People

Disclosure: This is a fanciful story based on real facts and a bunch of fake people.

The first Kendale Lakes Friendsgiving Feast was a great success when it came to food; there was a wide variety of appetizers, entrees, side dishes and delicious desserts. However, we can't say the same about the crowd itself.

Let's begin with the Latino Time guests who weren't able to arrive at the designated time. Not even once in a lifetime or for a gringo holiday party! Thanks to them, not all visitors were able to make it for the group picture before the feast was served. That’s also taking into consideration that an hour and a half had already passed from the time they were supposed to have arrived.

Although the Friendsgiving Party hadn't even started, the feeling of chaos had settled in almost a week before the event, when the WhatsApp chat group was created:

"A Friendsgiving party! Well, not in my house!" silently shouted J.T., the Peruvian, as he typed.

"No. At my house!" said Nanda. "Don't you see, my friend," she kindly added with her Brazilian gentleness, "it says that it's at MY house?!"

"You might be very good with numbers, but not with words," added a member of the chat.

"Hold on! No need to be mean to the nice guy," said nobody.

After being forced to host the party by Ragila, the Chilean, and getting many confirmations of attendance, Nanda realized it was time to break the news to her husband about hosting 20+ people at their place. She knew her husband would have a hard time hearing all that running talk the entire night. So, they came up with a great plan: to avoid dealing with the crazy runners, he pretended he had bronchitis and early stages of pneumonia to head to bed early with the excuse he was taking heavy medication.

So, when the hostess-to-be finally thought she was going to be able to take a break from the chaos, Maril A. started to rile up the other guests:

"Excuse me, but are we going to have at least one entree?" she exclaimed. "I don't want to go to a Thanksgiving party that will have tons of side dishes and zero entrees!"

"WTF is this skinny bitch worried about?!" Aligri thought.

"Yes, dear Maril A. I will be getting a turkey and Woopy will be bringing a fried turkey."

"Guys, is this going to be a potluck? Can we carpool?" inquired Disil.

"Yes, everyone is to bring something and we will be sharing the cost of the turkey. It will be $3.50 per person."

Now it was Woopy's turn to message Nanda privately, asking if Woopy and her husband could fry the turkey onsite, since the turkey tastes better fresh out of the hot oil. She assured Nanda they wouldn’t burn her house down. Nervously, Nanda wondered if those two Republicans would actually help her make her house smell great again. Regardless, being the pure and kind soul she was, she conceded to the idea for the sake of everyone's happiness. After all, she had already accepted the idea of allowing the Colombians, Venezuelans, Peruvians, Chileans, Ecuadorians, Cubans, Nicaraguans, Filipinos, gringos, and so on, to be at her house all at the same time. What else could be more dangerous than that?!

"Just let me know what I should bring!" offered Maril A.

"Could you bring some salad, please?" asked Nanda.

"No!" She responded. "I will bring chips!"

Outraged, with Maril A's refusal, Rafol, the vegan (maybe vegetarian, something like that), promptly offered to bring the salad instead. Trying to be helpful, Carmoli offered to contribute with salsa and veggie sticks to make the party more friendly to all. Carmoli’s brother, Rimoli, also wanted to chip in, but his issues with short-term memory loss kept making him forget what he had offered to bring to the party. The problem was easily solved after he took a couple of minutes to read the 2,374 messages on the WhatsApp group chat.

Anyways, worst case scenario, he could have brought anything he wanted. Nobody would even notice if he contributed the wrong items; they were too busy listening to Disil's amazing stories of how running a Full and a Half Marathon that same year had helped him to reach 1,000 miles for the year earlier that week. Also, what it meant to him to celebrate it by taking a picture with a banner that said so at the Friendsgiving party, only to be interrupted by Frap who believed it was even more important for them to hear all about his unbelievable experiences as a Half Iron Man and how his new PR was incredibly fifty minutes shorter.

Not wanting to fall behind, Rose also thought it was crucial to mention she had run sixteen miles that morning since she now was training for her first Full Marathon and that would make it easier for her during her triathlon competitions. Besides that, it was important that everyone knew why she didn't bring the pasta she promised. She was too tired to make it, so she replaced it with beets.

"I also ran sixteen miles today," Frap piped up.

"Oh my gosh!" whispered Cravila, the other triathlete and newest 2019 Half Iron Man, while rolling her eyes."These two divas now are going to be competing the whole night to see who is the best. The truth is these triathletes are all a pain in the a%@, except for me, because I am very quiet."

For the next few minutes, Cravila sat there miserably sipping wine trying to endure their conversation. Finally, she gave up but realized she was actually stuck to the chair and unable to get out of it. Luckily, Ragila joined the group, ending the conversation and starting a new topic by airing his grievances with every single person at the party. While Ragila kept attacking others, Vegas was feeling glad he finally overcame the serious problem he had going on for the last few days: After many nights losing sleep over trying to figure out if he was going to attend the Friendsgiving party, go to sleep early that night, or play soccer, he decided he would do all three of them. Glad he was able to manage all but arriving late, he got distracted by the commotion and euphoria after hearing something about Lise's sluttys. As he looked up, he realized the sluttys were actually brownies, and everyone wanted to eat them. While all were silently enjoying the delicious dessert, Malon decided it was a great time to raise her wine glass and shout that she was thankful for being single, shocking everyone but J.T., who after a couple of glasses of wine got the holidays mixed up and started to believe he was, in fact, a bartender at the Halloween party, only knew how to make Pisco, and was a matchmaker.

Meanwhile, J.T.'s wife, who is not a runner and doesn’t get runners, started to put the numbers together and realized the number of single ladies, rethinking her decision of allowing her husband to keep running with this group. Patrin, another single lady in the group, was distracted with Lise's speed-dating tutorial, which Patrin was not interested in since she enjoyed her own company. The other ninety percent of the singles at the party, including Aligri, were paying close attention. Now, she could share all the details with the married guys she encountered on dating websites who are married but not dead, so they can leave her alone and she can definitely be dead to them once and for all.

The tutorial got interrupted by Ecos, who is also single and had an important question about the dating thing, but no one heard what he had to say since Rose couldn't stop crying because the word “speed” made her recall the day that Disil jumped in front of her at the finish line during a race, creating tremendous discomfort for all. So, while trying to comfort her, Vermud, a very sweet Peruvian who has actually been avoiding the group of runners for a while with the false pretense that she's been too busy working, decided it was best if she left the party early before it got any worse.

Others followed. It was past 10 p.m., which means it was already bedtime for all of them; they had plans to wake up early before sunrise the next morning and go out looking crazy and stupid to others who have no idea what the f#&@ they are doing or why, just like Woopy's husband, who was thankful that night that his wife has friends to run with so he didn't have to.

Happy Friendsgiving!

P.S.: We both know you still owe me $3.50 for the turkey.