In the last version of the covid Thanksgiving poll, I still think they should both stay home; which wasn’t an option.
If we’re talking about a small gathering of other careful people, and the careful person wants to go but not if a likely contagious person is going to show up, then the onus is on the sick and/or positive person to stay home. But ‘everybody in the family’ reads like a large shindig to me, most likely with at least some people coming from significant distances. If the family’s four people who all live in the same neighborhood, that’s a different situation.
I also think the person who tested positive and/or has symptoms shouldn’t go even if nobody else at the gathering cares.
I didn’t want to influence the results by posting in the same post as the poll, but I always associated “Sunday! Sunday! SUNDAY!” with monster trucks. So I was a little surprised when I learned that the phrase originated in advertising for drag races in the late 1960s. Although looking at ads on YouTube, it was used for monster truck rallies as well. And apparently NASCAR. I honestly meant to include an “other motorsport” option, but I forgot, and now it’s too late to edit the poll.
ETA: And I misspelled “monster” in the poll and can’t edit it. Bah.
I voted that both the immunocompromised person and the covid person should stay home. I’m one of the immunocompromised folks. I got covid this summer. I suspect it was from a conversation, held outdoors, but she was a bit ignorant about personal space. It was 2-1/2 months before all the symptoms were gone.
I’m staying home tomorrow. The rest of my family will be together, trying to out-shout each other and have a grand old time. Not worth the risk. Let them have at it. I’m still making a pumpkin pie though. And it’s all for me, several days in a row.
I can confirm that drag racing is how it started. An track announcer and PR guy I met had a grand old time being the voice of those early ads with the echo effect. When voicemail became an option, he took the opportunity to make his personal voicemail into an ad. It went something like:
Sunday, Sunday, Sunday, we’re at the track drag racing! You’ll have to leave a message. That’s right! At the track where there’s cars, cars on fire! Women, women with breasts! Breasts on fire! And best of all free beer! That’s right! Free Fucking Beer! [voice fades out] Beep.
I wasn’t, either. I don’t do it. But I’m sure i have at least a couple of times, when it was a collective project and i happened to be in the room. I wanted to vote “almost never”.
Sometimes I’m tempted to comment there, but I get the syndicated puzzle which comes out a couple weeks after it appears in the Times. So anything I would say would no longer be relevant.
Not my acquaintance, who is from the other side of the country. But practically every drag strip used that style of advertising once they had heard it.
Regarding the keeping a log of fuel consumption. I kept a log for the entire 12 years I drove my Honda CRX. I was fascinated to see how my mileage varied by the speed I was driving and the quality of the gas I used. I haven’t bothered since, because the cars I bought had hungrier engines (and I’m a leadfoot). It was a fun, educational experiment and despite my occasionally leadfooting it, I did learn to drive slower to get better mileage.
In '71 or '72 somebody did a recording that started out “Sunday! Sunday! US Amphetamine Speedways!” It went on for a while, with two people alternating lines, but all I remember is near the end:
