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Charlie Hatton
Watertown, MA
« Beddy-Bye, Here I Come | Main | Can We Have Tabouli Instead of Mashed Potatoes This Year? »
Okay, that's better. Several hours of sleep have helped my brain, though maybe not my mood. I'm feeling a little snarky today. Maybe I slept too long; I don't know.
(Does it really have to be so complicated?)
Anyway, just pretend that it's still Wednesday night. Or pretend that I have a time machine, and that I wrote the last post, then slept for nine hours, got up, watched my wife watch Santa Claus in the Thanksgiving Day parade (which I mistimed, by the way, and ended up seeing Clay Aiken, as well... damn my rotten clock management!), and popped backwards in time to write this. Or make up something equally as ludicrous -- I don't really care. The point is, I'm here, and this post counts for Wednesday. That's just the way it is.
So. I've been doing some thinking about Thanksgiving, particularly about all the food that's going to be shoved down people's gullets in the next twenty-four hours or so. And I realized -- probably several years later than everyone else -- that Thanksgiving as a holiday has been pretty fully 'Americanized'. That is, the original meaning has been marginalized, if not lost completely, in all the marketing and hype and hoohah that precedes it. Sure, individual people may keep the true spirit of the holiday in mind, and more power to them. But Hollywood, or Madison Avenue, or Wall Street, or Microsoft, or whoever you believe controls such things, has forsaken the pilgrim and the family and the 'thanks' for cartoon turkeys and orange and brown bunting.
(Hey, I said I was snarky. I'll try and lighten it up from here on out, okay?)
Anyway, it struck me that Thanksgiving is, in many ways, about one thing: gluttony. It's a handy excuse to pack our pieholes full of... well, pie, among other things. But also turkeys and hams and yams and stuffing and cranberries and potatoes and all manner of dead animals and tablecloths and small children and pretty much anything else we can get our desperate, greasy hands on.
So that got me thinking about other holidays, and how they may have gone awry over the years. If Thanksgiving is 'gluttony', how are we doing with the other 'Deadly Sins'? So... after looking them up, because I don't keep track of such things -- here's what I came up with:
Gluttony: Thanksgiving. I said that already. Keep up with me here, folks.
Greed: Well, clearly, this is Christmas. It's all about the 'gimme, gimme gimme'. From letters to Santa to window shopping to Internet wish lists, it's all about the loot.
(Hey, there's nothing wrong with that -- I've got a wish list myself. I'm just saying.)
Lust: Valentine's Day. Though it could be 'Envy', if you're on the outside of a sexy pair of undies looking in, rather than in there getting busy yourself.
Pride: I dunno, the 4th of July, maybe? I know a lot of people who see the message in that as less 'hey, look how far we've come', and more 'everybody sucks but us'. Or, in some cases, just 'everybody sucks'. Some people are never frickin' happy.
Anger: Lessee, how about St. Patrick's Day? Not that the holiday itself pisses people off, but with all that green beer being swilled, somebody's eventually gonna get their undies in a bunch over something. Nothing says holiday like 'bar room brawl', right?
Envy: Erm... I dunno. I'll go with Halloween. I just remember when I was a kid, every one of the other little pissants around had better candy than I did. Ninety percent of my shit was candy corn, those horrible styrofoamy 'peeps', and candy apples that I wasn't allowed to eat. ('There might be a razor blade in it!' Well, fine. I'll eat a razor blade. Maybe it'll help me forget that my candy sucks ass!)
Sloth: This is a tough one. The point of every holiday is to get some sloth in, right? That's why we stay home from work, and sleep till noon, and sit on the couch all day. So you could make a case for any 'official' holiday here that gets you out of work, or school, or whatever responsibility you normally have. On the other hand, I haven't used Easter yet, and it's in dire need of a sin, so I'll go with Easter here. Your mileage may vary.
So. Wow. That was an interesting little exercise. Not necessarily funny, or even entertaining, but interesting, nonetheless. So at least I got something out of this post.
(That would be 'self-serving', folks -- a mix of Greed and Pride that fosters Anger in you, as you realize that you just wasted ten minutes of your life reading this crap. So sorry.)
Anyway, what do you think? Have I got the holidays in the right slots? Are there others you would add? Am I just a big fat Grinch for even thinking of such things? Or are you pissed that you're still reading this, and it hasn't gotten any damned better?
(Hey, I'm doin' the best I can here. If I could make you wet your pants with every post, I'd do it. I wouldn't ask to borrow your chair ever, but I'd do it. Really.)
In any case, I'm well-rested and ready to face my gluttony today. I'm gonna throw on some 'fat pants' (do guys even have those?) and get ready to throw down some chow. Whatever you do, don't get near me at the table. If you get near my hands, you might end up in my mouth. And... um, not in a good way, either. Normally, I only bite on request -- today, I'm biting down on anything that comes near me. So be sure it's not your finger, and you'll have one more thing to be thankful for. Bon appetit!
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I like peeps.. but only if they're frozen. My mother enjoys eating them only after they've been left open for several hours.. the stale form of peeps I suppose.
Frozen is the only way to go.