This Thanksgiving, be good to your host: Help Clean Up!

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Men and teenagers and women guests, too. If someone has gone to all that trouble (and it's a LOT) to host you and feed you, the very least you can do is pitch in once the eating is over. This mean you, yes, YOU clear the table, rinse the dishes and pots, load the dishwasher, wipe the counters, and help store the leftovers, including that nasty turkey carcass. Somebody has to do it. Somebody always does it. When was the last time you did?

It will be tremendously appreciated by your Mama, Grandma, Auntie, sister, WIFE, daughter, neighbor or friend who was kind enough not to leave you out in the cold this holiday. And they will be even happier to invite you to return next year (without resenting you for sitting on your ass watching football while only one or two women clean up).

And here's another hint: If you start to help and she tells you don't bother, she's just being polite. Do it anyway, and don't stop. Until she physically takes a dirty pan out of your helping hands and shoves you out of the kitchen, she wants and needs you to do your part. As long as she is cleaning, every fed person over age 8 should be cleaning up, too. If you want to really, really blow her mind, shove HER out of the kitchen. Then afterward, you can all relax TOGETHER and have pie with that ice cream I'm sure you brought to share!