I Ain't No Fool, And I Don't Take What I Don't Want

Is there any limit to what we won't eat on Thanksgiving?

That question is half-serious, because I am curious to find out if there is any limit. 

Thanksgiving is becoming gay.  Not in like "I like other holidays" sort of gay, but in the "I am stupid" sort of gay.  It has lost it's appeal.  Food?  We have a holiday about food?  It's good but come on, everything else has a purpose.  Christmas, whether or not PC America admits it, is about Jesus being born.  Easter, whether or not PC America admits it, is about Jesus being dead and resurrected.  Halloween, whether or not PC America admits it, is about candy and not whorish self-expression.  Sweetest Day, whether or not PC America admits it, is about...what the heck is Sweetest Day about anyhow?  The only good it ever did me was spending a crap ton of money on a date because it was a special day.  It's like an amateur's Valentine's Day, and it sounds like it's a day dedicated to the Swiss.  Sweetest Day is also gay, along with Thanksgiving.

And I'll tell you why it's gay.  Come on children, grab a spot on the floor by the fireplace, and I'll tell you why Thanksgiving is so gay.  What's that Timmy?  What's gay mean?  Ask your daddy.  Anyhow, moving on.

I gathered with my family at my grandparents this year, like every year. And like every year, no one was really thankful.  A cousin griped, one of my uncles, the know-it-all, whined about how everything in life is a dang conspiracy to keep people like him down (which is an attitude only a chronic victim could have), we all prayed the cookie-cutter prayer we always pray.

 

"Bless us O Lord, and these thy gifts which we are about to receive, from thy bounty, through Christ, our Lord, the Lord of Liquor and Nicotine. Amen"

That Jesus fits my family well.  And that prayer is such a joke.  In Catholic school, before and after every meal, we raced to finish that prayer like a priest raced to pull up his pants when the altar boy's parents came to pick him up from his office.

If that offends you, that sucks.  Anyhow, the prayer is begun and ended with the ritualistic "In the name of the Father, the Son, and The Holy Spirit", with a matching sign language game.  Now I know where rappers get the idea to make up dances for their songs, Catholic prayers.  It makes everyone want to listen to the song even if it sucks.  My little cousin sits across the island counter and does it all with a vacant look in his eyes, and doesn't understand any of it, but he does it because the weight of the family's disapproval is more than he can bear.  Bring it on I say, I used to bench near my body weight.

I don't finish all of my food because I am full.  On my way to scrape it, the people around me who call me family but have a history of thinking me to be a lost sheep with dirty fur, ask me things like "You aren't going to finish that?" or "That's all you're eating?", as if to say more concisely, "Aren't you thankful you impetuous little bastard?"  I prepare for the spiel about starving children in Africa.  It never comes, but I offer my rebuttal anyway.  I pose my train of thought: "I find it more a disservice to said starving children to eat things that I don't even want than it is to let it go to waste.  They can't even eat what they do want because it isn't there, and I would have the nerve to eat stuff I don't want but eat anyway just because the alternative is a trash bin and I'm too greedy to see it fall into a bag, out of my control?  I doubt starving children would enjoy seeing me stuff my face with food I was not enthusiastic about because I wasn't hungry anymore."

I am sure this child would love to watch me stuff my face with food I don't want because my belly is so full that it is the size of his torso by now.

I didn't say all of that, but much of it.  They look at me in mild confusion, because to them, thankfulness is the act of consumption.  I'm so thankful, om nom nom.  They should call Thanksgiving "America Day" because the whole thing is so superfluously consumerist and aristocratic.  I think when I have a family I may have to start celebrating it every other year, because maybe that is the reason people come to my grandma's house annually on this date and complain about who was not acting her age at the workplace, or the prick who cut them off in traffic, or the slutty girl who took their boyfriend.  I left early, and the only person who seemed to think I was leaving anything special was my Mom, but she gets like that for every family function period, so I doubt she even really feels like it's about anything real.

     And tonight I went to my grandma's house on my dad's side of the family, and it wasn't nearly as bad, but some elements of what makes Thanksgiving gay existed.  My whiny cousin of immeasurable negativism was griping about how there was no cheesy broccoli rice, even though it was given to my grandma, and all she had to do was heat it up.  She implies with this statement that my grandma is a stupid old person who couldn't follow instructions, and just threw the broccoli out, almost like "Well shucks, it's cold.  Later Mr. Cheesy Broccoli Rice."  My stepsister joined in, but was more silly about it.  I said aloud, "Man, let's focus on everything we don't have for Thanksgiving."  The cousin continued on griping, repeating exactly what she said about how all she had to do...and I repeated exactly what I said.  Let's just focus on everything we don't have for thanksgiving.  She grimaced as if I forgot that she likes to only piss and moan and never to accept that God places some things that are good around us.  Later that night, her whiny mom griped about her whiny daughter and all the problems that exist in her relationship and why she hates whiny cousin's whiny boyfriend.

For crying out loud.  Thanksgiving doesn't get any simpler in it's literal meaning.  Give thanks.  For anything.  I'm thankful for a crap-ton of stuff.  That's the second time I've said crap-ton in one post, I better chill with that one.  But really, a poo-load of stuff.  Friends, the sun, food, family, girls and their inherent beauty (both inner and outer), that God cares that I exist while many do not, that a world exists where if I want to, I can cut and run.  I'm thankful that I can go buy something to eat within ten minutes of feeling hungry, though some places exist where children murder each other with their bare, frail hands for the equivalent of a saltine cracker.  I'm thankful that gravity and the atmosphere work like they do.  I'm thankful that I can type and have hands, can speak and have a mind.  I'm thankful that cars go, dogs bark, kisses taste sweet, and rejection tastes bitter.  Those are all in no arranged order by the way.

Stuff that you look at or think about and feel wonder or amazement, that's what you are thankful for.

So what are you thankful for?  Not just the givens, like friends and family, but real stuff, real stuff that is worth taking some time to think about.  Don't even tell anyone, unless you realize one of your hidden gratitudes is to someone, just keep it in your head and use it to remind you of life being beautiful even when you have to dress it up in pounds of makeup to make it presentable.