First off, Happy Thanksgiving to all ye my faithful readers, I hope that each and every one of you is this day in the company of good family, faithful friends, and a turkey the size of a Mini Cooper.
Thanksgiving, it happens to be the case, is one of those few days in the year when the newspapers pretty much just devote the whole issue to the order of the day, with tributes to great men of ages past, heroes of the present, and shapers of the world yet to come. And it’s all very inspiring and patriotic and really makes for a nice change. Except, for Dear Abby, who, almost invariably (except for this year, when she decided to confound my machinations horribly) writes a terribly depressing little litany of things that we, ungrateful churls that we are, ought to be more grateful for. It’s always full of stuff like this: “Feeling a little under the weather today? Be grateful because people in many parts of the world dying hideous and unspeakable deaths at the hands of the lizard men of the Congo.” Or, “Not doing quite as well as you might like this holiday season? Well, be thankful you’re not one of the ten million people in America alone who has to eke out a living by recycling the bubble gum they pick out of other people’s shoes.” In short, its all very depressing, and as an antidote to such misery mongering, I present to y’all my personal list of things that we, as Americans, can in fact be grateful for:
Monkeys, because you know, people in a lot of European countries don’t have the sort of free market economy that we have here, which allows major corporations and enterprising individuals to bring over large quantities of all sorts of primates from the tiniest marmoset to the blue-buttedest baboon for the enjoyment of the public.
Places that are open 24 hours a day, because you know, it’s not everywhere that a man can decide he needs a waffle, a roto-tiller, a Shmuffin, and some powerful over the counter medications at
Not being in
Marginally Legal P2P File Sharing Programs which allow anyone in the nation who suddenly feels the need to download a copy of Bionic Commando to do so in mere minutes. And how about when you just need to get that one song off of that Mariah Carey album where if you play it backwards she tells you to worship Satan? If it wasn’t for the shadowy world of Internet piracy you’d probably have to go to Sam Goody or something, and they’re not open at three in the morning, are they?
Capitalism, under which all manner of businesses catering to all sorts of weird and outlandish needs can just spring up out of nowhere as long as there’re enough people crazy enough to buy whatever it is they’re selling. Do you think that the federal government would ever set up a factory to build medieval crossbow parts? I doubt it. Also, government-made cars always suck and all look alike, so there’s another nice thing about capitalism (unless you’re already driving a Daewoo, in which case even the suckiest of federally-mandated crapmobiles would be a massive step up in quality).
Dick Cheney, because even though I’m always making fun of him and giving him a hard time about that whole Lord of the Sith thing from way back in the day, he still always sends me a nice card at Christmas with a Chuck E. Cheese gift certificate inside. And some of those socks with non-slip stuff on the sole so I don’t fall over when I’m walking on linoleum.
Batman, because he keeps our cities safe. Seriously, they don’t have Batman in say,
So there you go, just a few things that make me ever grateful to be living here in the good old U.S. of A. Anyway, have a groovy Thanksgiving, and, in the immortal words of Patrick Henry, “Give me the mashed potatoes of give me death!”
