LET US GIVE THANKS

Ah, Thanksgiving. My favorite neglected holiday. What many consider a launching pad to Christmas, I still consider a top holiday that deserves top holiday treatment.

So, it is time to take part in what has become the annual tradition of my things I am thankful for:

I am thankful for my daughter, who is only in her fourth month, but has already brought me years of knowledge.

I am thankful for my wife, who used the benefits of modern medicine and pain relief during labor, and therefore does not feel the need to share countless gruesome labor stories and their accompanying pain descriptions.

I am thankful for my sisters, who have welcomed my child with warmth and love, apparently warmth and love they had saved up from when I was a child and they only had to expend wedgie energy.

I am thankful for my evil cat, who has realized that my child is not a scratching post, and keeps a healthy 15-20 feet from her.

I am thankful for my dogs, who really and truly believe they are doing noble work when they lick my daughter from head to toe. (For the record, I don’t allow this or encourage this. But they’re quick.)

I am thankful for this presidential election, because we are living through an event that will be solidly entrenched in the history books from this day forward. (I am not thankful, however, that everyone now pretends to be a constitutional scholar, just how they all pretended to be criminal defense experts during the OJ trial. Ah, the joys of feigned intellect.)

I am thankful for baseball, which is still the greatest sport in the history of the universe. (I am not thankful for Manny Ramirez, because I don’t like to be reminded that, sometimes, $17 million a year just isn’t enough reward for playing a game.)

I am thankful for The Daily Show on Comedy Central, as that is really the only place I can stomach receiving news from in this day and age.

I am thankful for the internet, because we have finally found something to do at work other than spread rumors about co-workers.

I am thankful for Butch Davis, and the keen insight I hope he will show when he leaves the University of Miami to lead my beloved Crimson Tide back to their place in football glory. We stayed inside the family with Dubose. You see how well that worked. It’s time to adopt.

I am thankful for the college football fans who understand what I was just talking about, and thereby prove that college football is just a smidge behind baseball as the greatest sport in the universe.

I am thankful for professional wrestling, because it proves that in America, anyone can be a hero to a small child. Granted, that may say something about small children more than wrestlers. Either way, it gives little excuse to parents for serving as poor role models.

I am thankful for store clerks who do not smack gum or talk on the phone while waiting on me.

I am thankful for people who say, "Excuse me" when they accidentally step in front of me at a store. And mean it.

I am thankful for people who wave to me when you let them in traffic.

I am thankful that, when I become emperor, all of the people who are the opposites of the above three categories will be rounded up and sent to live in the Dakotas.

I am thankful that the Dakotas have fairly straight borders, and will be fairly easy to fence in.

Finally, I am thankful for you, the kind readers who waste a good 5-10 minutes of your week to read this stuff. So a sincere thanks – to both of you.

Happy Thanksgiving!

E-mail me at mwg1234@yahoo.com.