I think I would show up, with the most tacky food item I could muster and then have my SO cunt punt this bitch if she tried any backchat.
I will comment that for someone who throws this type of potluck party every year, she is sadly underequipped. I don’t know about you, but I have a pie knife, I actually also have a cake server, about a dozen serving spoons including 2 slotted spoons, a couple ladles, and have 3 sets of the classic Corningware casserole sets [all 3 french white. Identical sets. Yay wedding presents. sigh They go well with the 2 identical knife sets. Since I have my professional workset, we regifted those to a couple suckers that got married in the intervening years.]
A quick trip to a dollar store will get her all the cheap kitchen stuff she would need for having that type of potluck … then she wouldn’t need to specify people to bring serving pieces.
[actually, if I cared to, I can set a table for 16 with a full set of Limoges china, honest to goodness sterling silver forks, non sharp knifes and spoons, serving flatware, and my choice of waterford and baccarat stemware - all from the wedding acquisitions of an ancestor that got married in the early part of the 1800s. Unfortunately my sharp ‘steak’ knives are modern generic crap, but WTF 
]
Thanksgiving at aruvqan’s!
Honestly, after 45 years of people just turning up randomly and arguing about which house to go to, and being told, “oh, just drop by anytime” - I can only wish we had a Marnie in the family.
I’m sure Marnie has a couple of pie servers and a cake knife. She probably doesn’t have 4 or 5 pie servers and multiple cake knives. Based on the quantities of food she talks about in her letter, I’m sure they aren’t just having one pie.
And why does Lisa Byron Chesterfield get away with such a light assignment? As a recently married woman, she’s likely young and childless and has more time to make more than just a small plate of veggies. Seems unbalanced. Some other poor family has a bunch of stuff and an exacting prosciutto pinwheel to pull off.
As my mother used to say, “If you want a job done, give it to a busy person.” Probably the longer-married women (w/kids, likely) have more experience getting it done anyway. But I agree, it’s not fair.
To paraphrase Honest Toddler, “Being a mother is like being a surgeon, only instead of money, you get extra work to do.”
I get the feeling that Lisa gets the crudites because they are really easy for someone who isn’t the domestic type. Someone like Marni isn’t really concerned about sharing workload equitably as much as having a successful production.
Still, if I were Lisa I’d go on and get a veggie tray from the store and pass them off as my own handiwork. Marni’s gonna be too busy bossing everyone around to notice, and no one else is going to care.
To answer your second set of questions:
- Marney
- By the authority of always being right
- Ask Marney. Or don’t ask Marney. She’ll tell you either way.
I think the six families in Marney’s letter should have gotten together and all swapped assignments - and then done them exactly the way Marney said. On Thanksgiving, Marney would have had all the food she ordered in exactly the way she ordered it - but nobody would have done what they were told to do.
For years afterwards, the family could reminisce about the year Marney’s head exploded.
Ah, Marney. It just wouldn’t be Thanksgiving without that crazy bitch.
I’m betting the families don’t really mind Marney. It is a lot easier to put up with a bossy-pants for a few hours than to do the work it takes to put on a Thanksgiving feast–spotless house, perfect china, and delightful centerpiece included.
Marney’s probably real good about drafting the cousins into kitchen duty afterwards, so that the adults can relax a bit.
I just have to say it, Marnie is an idiot.
I mean, she assigns the Michelle Bobble family to bring stuffing, but not the bird. How can you possibly make stuffing without the bird? (And don’t get me started on the “sans meat” requirement. Sausage stuffing is the only way to go.) Moron.
I’m hosting Thanksgiving for the umpteenth time this year. I alternate with another relative. All the other relatives have excuses as to why THEY can’t host. “My house is too small.” “Oh, I can’t cook.” “We’re going to leave halfway through and go somewhere else.” etc., etc. For everyone but the hosts, the day is a ton of fun. They plop themselves on the couch and drink and watch football until they’re summoned to dinner. After gobbling down dinner, they return to the couch so that the same 5 people who cooked all day can clean up and divvy up leftovers.
I’m beginning to think I should sent out an email like Marney.
M A R N E Y
not Marnie
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I’m very happy that in our family, everything is coordinated by the women, and us guys are just along for the ride. That way the guys can be watching football in the room with the TV, while the ladies do all the work. Well, except for me and my partner, who hang around making chit chat with the ladies, because we’ve got teh gay, and hate football.
It’s not just the men in my family who plop their asses and watch football. A few women do, too. They are much too important to participate in the cooking and cleaning.
I’m the Thanksgiving scrooge!
Thy will be done, Marn–oops, I mean, NCB. 
Don’t forget the crispy onions in the green bean casserole!
Starting around the time I was a teenager, older people began explaining to me that they were going to start treating me like an adult. Invariably, when someone points out that you are an adult, they really mean that they don’t really think of you as an adult at all. Nobody reminds other adults that they’re adults.
I’m 29 now and I don’t remember the last time someone called me an adult but if I ran into someone condescending enough to ask me to “contribute at an adult level” I’d immediately assume they’re going to ask me to do something trivial and easy.