Things I’m Thankful For This Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving is only one day, one meal, and a few hours of my life that I have to spend with family members I’d really rather not be around. Thanks, Mom, for making me hate Thanksgiving!

Stores like Kohl’s use up extra electricity to illuminate not just their enormous sign, their TWO entryways, and the parking lot, but they all seem to focus much needed attention on the trees that landscape the areas away from their doors. What would the world be like if not for the knee-high evergreen bushes and the leafless twiggy trees with spotlights shining upon them in front of the Kohl’s department stores? I shudder to think. Thank you, Kohl’s!

Christmas music started playing in the malls right after Halloween, and I could not be happier because there are more and more people like me who were hypnotized as children to go completely homicidal sometime around Thanksgiving, when the Christmas music hits critical mass. What I’m thankful for is that I can’t shop much due to an empty bank account, but I count on my homicidal brethren to do their duty to even out the ratio of Christmas-music-lovers to Christmas-music-haters. Perhaps one day Christmas won’t be a three-month circus of insanity, and it will have to start with the damn music only being played in the same fucking month as the holiday itself! Thanks so much, fellow psychos!

Dogs. They just rock. Even when you just took him out and he refused to do poo-poos, though you told him over and over that this was his last chance to do poo-poos for the night, and 15 minutes after you brought him in, he did poo-poos on the front room floor. Yeah, even then dogs are great because no one else could shit on your floor and look at you with those big, sad, apologetic brown eyes and you’d still love them. Thanks for being you, River.

Pergo. Because I have a dog who doesn’t like to do poo-poos outside when there’s snow on the ground, or when it’s raining, or when there’s wet weather of any kind. He’s a big wuss. Pergo is so much less frightening than drizzle to a big, 100-pound dog made of fangs and muscles. Oh man, thank you bunches, Pergo flooring!

Shows like this, that remind me how very uninteresting humans are, and how freakin’ awesome eagles are. Thanks, Nature.

The price of gas keeps going down for no apparent reason, not unlike how the price of gas kept going up so dramatically for no apparent reason all year. I’m waiting for the big drops in shipping (including a cheaper postage stamp), plane/bus/train/cab fares, and all the other things that went up in price because of gas. Now that the gas is so much lower, it stands to reason that inflation will stop and deflation will occur, right? I’m thankful for that. Thanks for the deflation!

Sometimes you have friends who treat you like shit, even though you’ve been as close as sisters for decades, and just when you can’t take it anymore and are ready to give the ultimatum that they need to stop being horrible, nasty bitches or you’re out of their lives, they share the worst tragedy imaginable with you, laying bare their messed up lives, dashed hopes and dreams, and the emotional train wreck they have become because of it. So, thank you so much to the people who are so fucked up that you can’t help but feel sorry for them, even though there’s a teeny-tiny part of you that is enjoying their suffering. Yay karma!

Self-control is a wonderful thing. Recently I was shopping at a bookstore with Ann and we passed by the book Hot Chicks With Douchebags. Ann asked me what a “douchebag” was, and I drew upon my inner strength, resisting the urge to tell her the literal and figurative definition of the term. Instead, I sought an answer worthy of a librarian, and when I squinted and hmmm’d for long enough, she asked me if it meant “jerk”, which I decided it did indeed, and the matter was settled. So, thanks to me, I did not mar poor Ann’s brain with thoughts in my own, and if you think that’s no big deal, then you just do not know me at all.

With a salt shortage weighing heavily on the minds of many in the Midwest this winter, I was quite surprised to see that the quarter-inch of snow that fell yesterday was plowed with such vigor that busy streets actually had tiny little piles of snow built up along the sides of the roads, which could possibly trip an ant, if there are any ants running around in this weather. I had to wonder if the dusting of snow was actually removed with a gigantic feather duster attached to the front of a moped because there was such a trivial amount to remove. Good job, plowers! I don’t know what you’re paid for your services, but we are all very grateful for your enthusiastic devotion!

Today is Marina’s birthday, and I’m thankful that Marina was born. No sarcasm there. Don’t everyone bring her coffee today because if we all do, her eyes will bug right the hell out of her head and she won’t sleep for a week. Which would be funny. But not nice. Though she’ll need it on Friday. Happy Birthday, Marina!

Mostly, I’m thankful that My Schwee will be here in 4 weeks, and with him will come some hideous Christmas gift that will be immortalized and laughed at on my blog. If I have nothing else to write about next month, I know he will not fail to deliver something worth sharing with the world. He’s hinting at underwear with lighthouses on them, but I have little faith that he will find such a monstrosity. We shall see. But I’m thankful for My Schwee, who makes my lame gifts to others look really awesome. Thanks, Schwee!

What are you thankful for?