Happy Thanksgiving! Please Pass the Rant.

First off, Happy Thanksgiving, citizens of Dim City! Take a moment to recall the things you are thankful for this year. Special gratitude goes out to the men and women serving the U.S. overseas. Second of all, it’s “Happy Thanksgiving”. It’s NOT “Turkey Day”. In this day of cancelled Halloween celebrations and holiday trees (instead of Christmas trees) at the risk of offending some easily ticked-off wacko with no better battle to fight, let’s let this holiday keep some of its dignity.

“Happy Turkey Day” is one of those phrases that just sends electrical charges of pain and aggravation up and down my spine. It’s really on par with “Look, honey, 'Everwood' is on!” and “Hey Dim, it’s catheter time!”

“Happy Turkey Day” implies that we are celebrating the turkey. We’re not. And the turkey is most assuredly not happy on this day. It would be like calling July 4th, “Hey, Happy Redcoat Day!” Not sure the Redcoats would find that terribly accurate. If you think we are celebrating our game hen, just ask him. We’re not honoring him. We’re eating him. Big difference. So, unless you want to start eating everything that you are celebrating with these holiday phrases, let’s knock this shit off. If you chow down on the corpse of Christopher Columbus every October or gnaw on a nice poplar every Arbor Day (which will actually do wonders for your digestive well-being if it only followed Wheel of Cheese Day), feel free to call it Turkey Day. In fact, the only ones allowed to say “Happy Turkey Day” under these rules are Hannibal Lector and he isn’t real as well as some select undead zombies that, despite the SciFi Network, I am insisting are also not real. For Lector, though, “Happy Heart Day” on February 14 really does refer to his dinner. For him, that day also luckily happens to be Chianti Day and Fava Bean Day. (Insert creepy mouth noise here).

So, let’s keep things straight. It’s Thanksgiving. Give thanks. For eating a turkey. Well, and other things, too.

Second of all, when you pass out snoring eight seconds after you shovel the final forkful in your pie-hole, don’t blame some mystery mickey chemical in turkey for it. What is it again? Trichinosis? L-tryptophan? I-triptoverthecat? That thing. It’s bull. The real reason you can’t make it past halftime of the Cowboys game is because you had turkey and stuffing and mashed potatoes and sweet potatoes and squash and corn and carrots and gravy and a biscuit and cranberry sauce and a piece of apple pie and a piece of pecan pie and a piece of custard (“Hate to see it go to waste”) and a drumstick while people were cleaning up (barely audible whisper of “Anybody want this?”). You ate a volume of food that would have turned an ardent insomniac into Rip Van Winkle. So when you awake from your “Turkey Day” coma, von Bulow, blame yourself. Not the bird.

And while I think of it, what exactly is a “fixin’”? Turkey with ALL the fixin’s. I didn’t grow up down South, but I thought that “fixin’” was a southern person’s way of saying “I’m getting ready to…” As in, “I’m fixin’ to leave the trailer park. There’s a twister a-comin’!” And before you get all uppity and call that comment stereotypical, ask yourself when you last heard someone say, “I’m fixin’ to write my thesis” or “Just fixin’ do perform brain surgery.” Apparently, fixin’s on Turkey Day refer to all the side dishes I mentioned above that caused sleepy-time. Two words. Two very different meanings. I don’t get it.

Oh well. Have a nice Thanksgiving, everyone. Eat a lot of turkey and getting-ready-to-do-somethings. You might sleep straight through the weekend, but that’s what Turkey Day is all about. Bastards! Now you got me saying it.

-Dim.