The Mayflower Would Have Killed Me in 48 Hours: A Thanksgiving Story

Happy Thanksgiving Eve. I should be basting something, but instead I’m planning historical cosplay.

Next Thanksgiving, Jeremy and I are going as Pilgrims.

Not “haha, funny idea” Pilgrims.

Not ironic, not tongue-in-cheek, not something we’ll forget about by Easter.

No.

Actual, full-commitment, buckle-hat, bonnet-wearing Pilgrims. I am completely serious. I’m already looking at costume options. Jeremy doesn’t know he’s committed yet, but he is. This is marriage.

I started thinking about this because the more I learn about the Mayflower, the more obvious it becomes that I would have died almost immediately. The ship was basically a floating petri dish full of smallpox, scurvy, pneumonia, and people who considered bathing an occasional suggestion. Half the passengers died before they even built a house. Meanwhile, I can ride the Metro like a seasoned commuter, but a wooden ship full of smallpox? Absolutely not.

I would’ve been gone by the second sunrise. Tops.

Jeremy, however, would’ve survived slightly longer. Not because he’s naturally suited to 17th-century maritime squalor, but because the man genuinely believes that hot yoga is a universal solution. I can see him now, down in the cargo hold, trying to convert it into a Bikram studio while everyone else is coughing up colonial lung plague. He’d be telling the passengers that the humidity was “good for their circulation” while they tried not to pass out on bags of grain.

This is the man who married me.

This is the man who believes a 105-degree sauna is the answer to nearly everything.

If anyone could have turned the Mayflower into a wellness retreat while the rest of us were actively dying, it’d be him.

And that’s why next year we’re dressing as Pilgrims: because it perfectly captures the essence of our marriage. Slightly chaotic. Mildly alarming. Unexpectedly coordinated. A story that sounds like a joke until people realize we’re serious.

By the time Thanksgiving rolls around, everyone else will be carving turkey and pretending to enjoy the cranberry sauce, and we’ll show up looking like we stepped out of a middle-school diorama project. And we’ll give thanks—not in a sentimental, Pinterest-worthy way, but in a very real, very modern sense—for things like vaccines, deodorant, hot showers, and the ability to Google “Is this rash contagious?”

The pilgrims walked so we could run—to CVS for flu shots, deodorant, and common sense.