How I Survived an Awkward Family Dinner with My Humor Intact

 The battle began at the Myrtle Beach Costco. I was steering a shopping cart with enough food to stock a doomsday bunker when I spotted a bulky bag of spinach.

“We could make a salad,” I suggested.

“You can make a salad,” Mom answered. “I’m not gonna have any salad.”

First blood had been drawn.

Mom’s dinner table had always been a parade of simple Southern recipes, dishes that seem to say, “We’re all gonna die of heart attacks, so let’s do it as a family.” For a newly minted New York City slicker to return home and suggest a salad not of the macaroni persuasion, on Thanksgiving of all days, was blasphemy against God. Of course, I no longer believe in God.

It had already been a challenge for Mom to get me home for Thanksgiving. I’d skipped the last four years, opting for romantic trips abroad with my boyfriend. Now, newly brokenhearted, I decided to pull a prodigal child: do the right thing and return home.

“Spirit flies direct from New York,” Mom texted me.

Going home feels like going backward, I thought but didn’t say. The flight was turbulent enough to induce labor, but we managed to land without any change to the number of souls onboard. My entire family—two sisters, brother, Mom, Dad, and my older sister’s three children—were in the airport lobby with a “Welcome Home, Zach” sign. The spectacle suggested I was returning from war;  I’d just forsaken my familial obligations. My mom smiled and gave me a one-handed hug, the other hand gripping my 6-year-old niece’s baby doll.

I tossed my tiny bag in Dad’s truck and rode shotgun. We talked about the weather and city living. Meanwhile, I worried that if I mentioned my ex-boyfriend too loudly,  he might drive us into a ditch. There’s a tension in Southern air—the strange bedfellows of homophobia and humidity, and the ever-present terror that the person you were might be long behind you, but they are still breathing down your neck.

On Thanksgiving morning, Mom was in the kitchen preparing cardiovascular warfare. I observed her at work at enough distance to be curious, almost ethnographic, and offered commentary on my findings.

“You put sugar in the deviled eggs?!”

“Just a little,” she said. Matter-of-fact.

“You know there’s already sugar in  practically everything?” I explained. “Big Food adds sugar to keep us addicted.”

“Oh, is that so,” she said, stirring and not changing a thing.

I carved out a corner on the counter and started to put together my simple salad.  Spinach, a few tomatoes, and some cheese. I’d never really been in the kitchen much as a kid. Chores were gendered and uneven in our house: Women did the cooking, washed the dishes, cleaned the bathroom, kitchen, and living room, and ironed clothes. Men mowed the lawn. On the TV was the Macy’s Parade, a fabulous Broadway musical number snuck in between the masculine Spider-Man and bro-y Hulk balloons. I watched it as I finished my three-ingredient masterpiece and asked Mom if I should put on the dressing now or later.

“Yeah, put it on there,” she answered. “And stick it in the fridge so it stays cold.”

Maybe Mom was warming up to a collaborator in her kitchen, her queer kid doing her work. She told me she loves me, something she says so often it’s like she’s trying to convince us both.

“Think you’ll have any?” I asked.

“Nah, I’m not gonna have any salad.”

My two nieces set the dining room table, used so infrequently that it feels like playing house. Every seat would be full this holiday thanks to my older sister’s addiction to having children. My nephew and nieces, referred to as “the babies,” don’t know me well at all, a casualty of my not visiting.  A friend told me you can show up for a niece or nephew at any age, but I feel bad that we’re not closer.

I didn’t grow up  in this  house, so it always  feels a bit fake to think of it as “home.” My parents moved from Roanoke, Virginia, to Myrtle Beach,  South Carolina, during my first year of college. Generations had lived in a small circle in the  Shenandoah Valley until my entrepreneurial, adventurous mother set her sights on the shore. She built her dream (20-minutes-from-the-) beach house.

Her act of generational, geographic rebellion must have been genetic. I was living my dream too, in New York. Ever since high school, when a coach bus drove me and 40 classmates to watch the Witches of Oz from the nosebleeds, I knew I wanted to live there. After a too-long tour of duty in  Chicago, a cataclysmic breakup finally jettisoned me to the city of 4 a.m. bars. I was living my (sharing-a-single-bathroom-with-three-other-adult-humans) dream. If everything turned out exactly as we planned, we’d be very bored gods.

When the meal was ready, everyone took their seats. Dad emerged from hibernation. He looked gentler now than I remembered, a soft, gray beard hiding his neck. He never hit us, except with zingers and Bible verses. A pastor in his past life, Dad could deliver full-length sermons at the dinner table, hellfire, and brimstone as appetizer and aperitif to any meal. Today, hunger bested the Holy Spirit.

“Dear Heavenly Father, we thank you for the meal. In Jesus’s precious name, we pray, amen.”

The prayer ended, and my 10-year-old nephew outed me. “Zach’s eyes weren’t closed!”

Mom shot me a stare but broke it quickly. A four-year time-out had put everyone on their best behavior. We silently agreed to try to keep things light on Turkey Day. Instead of yelling about atheism,  Christianity, Trump, abortion, homosexuality, kids in cages, racism, capitalism, and socialism, we passed the mac ’n’ cheese and potatoes.

“None for Zach. Zach’s a vegetarian,” my younger sister said when the turkey made its rounds.

Our plates were filled and emptied.

“Why don’t we all say something we’re thankful for?” my mom pitched.

It’s a tradition we’d done as children. I always sat anxiously during the game, shame and fear pulsing through my body because I knew there was only one right answer.

“Jesus Christ,” my youngest niece said dutifully.

I wondered if her answer would change over time—and as drastically as I had—from a straight, meat-eating, Christian conservative to a queer, vegetarian, atheist socialist. Would she get the space and time to dig and grow, or just pour some more sugar in the deviled eggs?

After a couple more thankful answers—a few Jesuses and a gas-price joke from Dad—I became brave enough to share my truth.

“I’m thankful for Lady Gaga.”

“Zachary,” my mom chided.

I smiled and course-corrected: “I’m thankful to be with my family.”

“Aww,” she cooed.

Slices of her no-bake cheesecake and a pecan pie from Cracker Barrel, recruited in recent years to help out as the matriarch aged, were distributed. A plastic pitcher of sweet tea met its demise. Dad retreated to the recliner in his bedroom to watch football with my brother, while my sisters cleared the table and loaded the dishwasher. At 15 minutes total, the meal was more of a feeding than a sit-down dinner. Its brevity kept us from hurting each other. Family members always have the nuclear codes for each other, the precise collection of words and phrases that, when entered, cause total annihilation. Tonight’s short summit staved off mutually assured destruction.

I helped my sisters put the leftovers in the fridge when I saw the carnage. Drowning in buttermilk, waterboarded by ranch, wrinkled beyond recognition: my salad. I reached for the bowl to see if any of it could be salvaged, a mother not ready to say goodbye to her child, but the ingredients had already decomposed. I considered taking a bite, but dessert had left me no room.

EVGENIIAND/GETTY IMAGES

This victory would go to my mother. Her subtle but effective smear campaign against something green on her dinner table was a success. Perhaps it was a fool’s battle, to begin with—to push against the juggernauts, the parade balloons of Tradition and Mom and Home—but I tried and failed with pride.

Mom passed behind me as I poured the aftermath into the trash.

“Oh no,” she said. “Guess none of us are having a salad.”

Top 9 richest people and the world

1. Elon Musk

• Age: 51
• Residence: Texas
• Co-founder and CEO: Tesla
• Net Worth: $228 billion
• Tesla Ownership Stake: 15% ($99.3 billion)
• Other Assets: Space Exploration Technologies ($46.9 billion private asset), The Boring Company ($3.33 billion private asset), Twitter ($3.8 billion public asset), $17.8 billion in cash
  

Elon Musk was born in South Africa and attended a university in Canada before transferring to the University of Pennsylvania, where he earned bachelor's degrees in physics and economics. Two days after enrolling in a graduate physics program at Stanford University, Musk deferred attendance to launch Zip2, one of the earliest online navigation services. He reinvested a portion of the proceeds from this startup to create X.com, the online payment system that was sold to eBay  and ultimately became PayPal Holdings 

In 2004, Musk became a major funder of Tesla Motors (now Tesla), which led to his current position as CEO of the electric vehicle company. In addition to its line of electric automobiles, Tesla also produces energy storage devices, automobile accessories, and, through its SolarCity in 2016, solar power systems. Musk is also CEO and chief engineer of Space Exploration Technologies (SpaceX), a developer of space launch rockets.

In 2020, Tesla shares soared 740% to propel Musk up the wealth rankings. In December 2020, Tesla joined the S&P 500, becoming the largest company added. In January 2021, Musk became the richest person in the world—a title he's held since.

Image courtesy Getty Images/Saul Martinez.

In a Nov. 6, 2021 tweet, Musk asked his Twitter (TWTR) audience whether he should sell 10% of his Tesla stock, framing the issue as a response to criticism of unrealized capital gains as a means of avoiding taxes. He proceeded to sell shares worth $16.4 billion over the remainder of 2021.

U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren, a Massachusetts Democrat, cited a media report that Musk paid no income tax for 2018 to argue for the adoption of a wealth tax. "And if you opened your eyes for 2 seconds, you would realize I will pay more taxes than any American in history this year," Musk responded on Twitter.

Thanks to the surge in Tesla shares in 2021 and private transactions boosting the reported valuation of SpaceX, Musk's lead in the global wealth rankings has continued to grow. His net worth hit a high of $340 billion in November 2021.

In April 2022, Musk began a campaign to take Twitter private, which culminated in a $44 billion buyout. Musk planned to fund the deal with $21 billion of his own capital. In the run-up to the buyout announcement, Musk sold 9.6 million shares of Tesla, valued at roughly $8.5 billion.

In July 2022, Musk decided to back out of the Twitter buyout. As a result, Twitter filed a lawsuit against Musk to force the buyout to go through—then Musk countersued the company.

2. Jeff Bezos

• Age: 58
• Residence: Washington
• Founder and Executive Chair: Amazon 
• Net Worth: $144 billion
• Amazon Ownership Stake: 10% ($121 billion)
• Other Assets: Blue Origin ($9.15 billion private asset), The Washington Post ($250 million private asset), and $14.1 billion in cash

In 1994, Jeff Bezos founded Amazon.com in a garage in Seattle, shortly after he resigned from the hedge fund giant D.E. Shaw. He had initially pitched the idea of an online bookstore to his former boss David E. Shaw, who wasn’t interested.

Though Amazon originally started out selling books, it has since morphed into a one-stop shop for everything under the sun and is arguably the world’s largest retailer. Amazon's pattern of constant diversification is evident in some of its unexpected expansions, which include acquiring Whole Foods in 2017 and entering the pharmacy business the same year.

Bezos owned as much as 16% of Amazon in 2019 before transferring 4% to his former wife MacKenzie Scott as part of the divorce proceedings. In 2020, Amazon’s share price jumped 76% on the heightened demand for online shopping amid the COVID-19 pandemic. On July 5, 2021, Bezos stepped down as CEO of the e-commerce giant, becoming its executive chair.

Image courtesy Getty Images/Alex Wong.

Bezos originally took Amazon public in 1997 and went on to become the first man since Bill Gates in 1999 to achieve a net worth of more than $100 billion. Bezos’ other projects include aerospace company Blue Origin, The Washington Post (which he purchased in 2013), and the 10,000-year clock—also known as the Long Now.

On July 20, 2021, Bezos, his brother Mark, aviation pioneer Wally Funk, and Dutch student Oliver Daemen completed Blue Origin's first successful crewed flight, reaching an altitude of more than 66 miles before landing safely. Bezos' wealth peaked at $211 billion in the same month.

3. Bernard Arnault

• Age: 73
• Residence: Paris
• CEO and Chair: LVMH (LVMUY)
• Net Worth: $141 billion
• Christian Dior Ownership Stake: 97.5% ($111 billion total)
• Other Assets: Moelis & Company equity ($21.3 billion public asset), Hermès equity (undisclosed stake), and $8.9 billion in cash
  

French national Bernard Arnault is the chair and CEO of LVMH, the world’s largest luxury goods company. LVMH owns brands including Louis Vuitton, Hennessey, Marc Jacobs, and Sephora.

Most of Arnault's wealth comes from his massive stake in Christian Dior SE, the holding company that controls 41.2% of LVMH. His shares in Christian Dior SE, plus an additional 6.2% in LVMH, are held through his family-owned holding company, Groupe Familial Arnault.

An engineer by training, Arnault first showed his business acumen while working for his father’s construction firm, Ferret-Savinel, taking charge of the company in 1971. He converted Ferret-Savinel to a real estate company named Férinel Inc. in 1979.

Image courtesy Getty/Christophe Morin.

Arnault remained Férinel's chair for another six years, until he acquired and reorganized luxury goods maker Financière Agache in 1984, eventually selling all its holdings other than Christian Dior and Le Bon Marché. He was invited to invest in LVMH in 1987 and became the majority shareholder, chair of the board, and CEO of the company two years later.

4. Gautam Adani

• Age: 60
• Residence: Gurgaon, India
• Founder and Chair: Adani Group
• Net Worth: $125 billion
• Adani Enterprises, Power. and Transmissions Ownership Stakes: 75% each ($72.4 billion)
• Other Assets: 65% of Adani Ports & Special Economic Zone ($12.2 billion public asset), 61% of Adani Green Energy ($24.5 billion public asset), 37% of Adani Total Gas ($16.2 billion public asset)

Gautam Adani, the founder of Adani Group, surpassed Mukesh Ambani in March 2022 as the richest person in Asia. Adani, via his ownership of Adani Group, owns major stakes in six key Indian companies, including a 75% stake in Adani Enterprises, Adani Power, and Adani Transmissions, as well as a 65% stake in Adani Ports & Special Economic Zone, 61% stake in Adani Green Energy, and 37% stake in Adani Total Gas.

The combined market capitalization of companies owned by the Adani Group is $238.4 billion (as of Sept. 6, 2022). Adani entered the power generation market in 2009 with Adani Power. Adani created Adani Enterprises in 1988 to import and export commodities. In 1994, his company was granted approval to develop a harbor facility at Mundra Port, which is now the largest private port in India.

Adani dropped out of college and previously worked in the diamond trade. Now, Adani has the largest port operator, closely-held thermal coal producer, and coal trader in India. In 2020, he purchased a 74% stake in Mumbai's Chhatrapati Shivaji International Airport, India's second-busiest airport. The billionaire was kidnapped and held for ransom in 1997. Adani was also in Mumbai’s Taj hotel during the 2008 terrorist attack.

5. Bill Gates

• Age: 66
• Residence: Washington
• Co-founder: Microsoft
• Net Worth: $111 billion
• Microsoft Ownership Stake: 1.3% ($25.6 billion)
• Other Assets: Cascade Investment LLC ($51.8 billion public assets), $52.4 billion in cash
  

While attending Harvard University in 1975, Bill Gates went to work alongside his childhood friend Paul Allen to develop new software for the original microcomputers. Following this project’s success, Gates dropped out of Harvard during his junior year and went on to found Microsoft with Allen.

The largest software company in the world, Microsoft also produces its line of personal computers, publishes books through Microsoft Press, provides email services through its Exchange server, and sells video game systems and associated peripheral devices. Originally Microsoft's chief software architect, Gates shifted to the role of board chair in 2008. He joined Berkshire Hathaway’s board in 2004. He stepped down from both boards on March 13, 2020.

Bill Gates has much of his net worth in Cascade Investment LLC. Cascade is a privately-held investment vehicle that owns a variety of stocks including Canadian National Railway (CNR), Deere (DE), and Republic Services (RSG), as well as private investments in real estate and energy.

Image courtesy Getty Images/Jack Taylor.

In 2000, Gates' two philanthropic organizations—the William H. Gates Foundation and the Gates Learning Foundation—merged to create the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, still co-chaired by Gates and his ex-wife, Melinda French Gates. Through the foundation, they have spent billions to fight polio and malaria. The foundation pledged $50 million in 2014 to help fight Ebola. As of 2021, the foundation had spent more than $1.9 billion to combat the COVID-19 pandemic.

In 2010, alongside Warren Buffett, Bill Gates launched the Giving Pledge, a campaign encouraging the wealthy to commit to donating most of their wealth to philanthropic causes. Bill and Melinda French Gates divorced on Aug. 2, 2021. With the divorce, roughly $5 billion in equities were transferred to French Gates. Bill Gates is also the largest private owner of farmland in the U.S. with over 268,000 acres.

6. Warren Buffett

• Age: 92
• Residence: Nebraska
• CEO: Berkshire Hathaway 
• Net Worth: $98.2 billion
• Berkshire Hathaway Ownership Stake: 16% ($97.1 billion)
• Other Assets: $1.03 billion in cash

The most famous living value investor, Warren Buffett filed his first tax return in 1944 at age 14, declaring earnings from his boyhood paper route. He first bought shares in a textile company called Berkshire Hathaway in 1962, becoming the majority shareholder by 1965. He expanded the company to insurance and other investments in 1967. Now Berkshire Hathaway is a $705 billion-dollar market cap company, with a single share of stock (Class A shares) trading at more than $439,000 as of Aug. 5, 2022.

Buffett is a buy-and-hold investor who built his fortune by acquiring undervalued companies, widely known as the Oracle of Omaha. More recently, Berkshire Hathaway has invested in large, well-known companies. Its portfolio of wholly owned subsidiaries includes interests in insurance, energy distribution, and railroads as well as consumer products. Buffett is a noted Bitcoin skeptic.

Image courtesy Getty Images/Alex Wong.

Buffett has dedicated much of his wealth to philanthropy. Between 2006 and 2020, he gave away $41 billion—mostly to the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and his children’s charities. Buffett launched the Giving Pledge alongside Bill Gates in 2010.
 Buffett, 92 years old, still serves as CEO, but in 2021 he hinted at who might be his successor—Gregory Abel. Abel is the head of Berkshire’s non-insurance operations.

7. Larry Page

• Age: 49
• Residence: California
• Co-founder and Board Member: Alphabet 
• Net Worth: $93.6 billion
• Alphabet Ownership Stake: 6% ($79.5 billion total)
• Other Assets: $14.1 billion in cash
  

Like several tech billionaires on this list, Larry Page embarked on his path to fame and fortune in a college dorm room. While attending Stanford University in 1995, Page and his friend Sergey Brin came up with the idea of improving internet data extraction. The duo devised a new search engine technology they dubbed Backrub, named after its ability to analyze backing links. From there, Page and Brin went on to found Google in 1998, with Page serving as CEO of the company until 2001, and again between 2011 and 2019.

Google is the dominant internet search engine, accounting for more than 92% of global search requests.
 In 2006, the company purchased YouTube, the top platform for user-submitted videos. After acquiring Android in 2005, Google released the Android mobile phone operating system in 2008.
 Google reorganized in 2015, becoming a subsidiary of Alphabet, a holding company.

Image courtesy Getty Images/Justin Sullivan.

Page was among early investors in Planetary Resources, a space exploration, and asteroid-mining company. Established in 2009, the company was acquired by blockchain firm ConsenSys in 2018 amid funding problems.

He has also shown an interest in flying car companies, investing in Kitty Hawk and Opener. Shares of Google soared almost 50% in 2021, moving Page and Brin up the billionaire list. Page's net worth went from just below $52 billion in March 2020 to the current $98.7 billion.

8. Sergey Brin

• Age: 49
• Residence: California
• Co-founder and Board Member: Alphabet 
• Net Worth: $89.6 billion
• Alphabet Ownership Stake: 6% ($75.4 billion total)
• Other Assets: $14.2 billion in cash

Sergey Brin was born in Moscow, Russia, moving to the U.S. with his family when he was six in 1979. After co-founding Google with Larry Page in 1998, Brin became Google's president of technology when Eric Schmidt took over as CEO in 2001. He held the same post at the Alphabet holding company after it was established in 2015, stepping down in 2019 when Sundar Pichai took over as CEO.

In addition to its dominant internet search engine, Google offers a suite of online tools and services known as Google Workspace, which includes Gmail, Google Drive, Google Calendar, Google Meet, Google Chat, Google Docs, Google Sheets, Google Slides, and more.
 Google also offers a variety of electronic devices, including Pixel smartphones, computers, and tablets, Nest smart home devices, and the Stadia gaming platform.

Image courtesy Getty Images/Tim Mosenfelder.

Brin spent much of 2019 focusing on X, Alphabet’s research laboratory responsible for innovative technologies like Waymo self-driving cars and Google Glass smart glasses. He has also donated millions of dollars to Parkinson’s disease research, partnering with The Michael J. Fox Foundation.

9. Steve Ballmer

• Age: 66
• Residence: Washington
• Owner: Los Angeles Clippers
• Net Worth: $88.4 billion
• Microsoft Ownership Stake: 4% ($79.4 billion total)
• Other Assets: Los Angeles Clippers ($3.16 billion private asset), $5.8 billion in cash
  

Steve Ballmer joined Microsoft in 1980 after Bill Gates convinced him to drop out of Stanford University's MBA program. He was Microsoft's 30th employee. Ballmer went on to succeed Gates as Microsoft CEO in 2000. He held the position until stepping down in 2014. Ballmer oversaw Microsoft's 2011 purchase of Skype for $8.5 billion.

Ballmer owns an estimated 4% of Microsoft, making him the software giant's largest individual shareholder. In 2014, shortly after stepping down as Microsoft CEO, Ballmer purchased the Los Angeles Clippers basketball team for $2 billion.

Image courtesy Getty Images/Steven Ferdman.

Ballmer lived in the same dorm and on the same floor as Bill Gates while the two attended Harvard University. The brotherly relationship between the two became strained when Ballmer started pushing the tech company into hardware, such as the Surface tablet and the Windows mobile phone, during his tenure as CEO.