Wasting my life one day at a time...

Based on several comments I received, I must have offended some of my loyal readers in yesterday's entry by making a few degrading remarks about Jews. Let me straighten out a few things.

First, if a person hates Jews, he or she isn't racist. Since Judaism is a religion, it's independent of race, nationality, and skin color. The term most commonly used for Jew-haters is "anti-semitic," so quit calling me racist. I'm an anti-semite.

Second, I don't really hate Jews, so I guess I'm not really an anti-semite. But that won't stop me from trying. They're an easy target, and if my half-assed mockery of them is the worst thing they have to endure in this lifetime, they should consider themselves lucky. Taking my crappy insults sure beats spending four years in a Nazi concentration camp, right?

Third, the Jews are God's chosen people, and since I'm a God-fearing man, I would never seriously belittle them. Jesus, the co-creator of this Earth and one heck of a fisherman, is Jewish, so obviously I wouldn't want to upset him by ripping on him or his mama (also Jewish).

Now that we have that out of the way, let's turn our attention to something more enjoyable. It's almost Thanksgiving, and that means several things:

• Pumpkin pie -- Made from the pumpkin (obviously), a yucky gourd most people wouldn't touch if it wasn't spiced and smothered in whipped cream. My mom used to cook non-pied pumpkin for us, and it's disgusting. She'd cut it into sections, bake it, and we'd have to eat it. Bad memories.
• Cranberry sauce -- Or, rather, a wet cylinder of burgundy jelly that your mom gets from a can. It resembles Jello more than any kind of actual sauce, and it's best served with the little swirly indentations of the can still imprinted on it. Most people only choke it down once a year, so enjoy it while you can. I don't think anyone on Earth knows what it's actually supposed to be spread on or served with.
• Native American pride -- This is the only time of the year that American Indians can feel superior to their white conquerors, since, as we all learned back in kindergarten, the Indians "saved" the Pilgrims back in the 17th century by showing them how to grow corn and worship non-existing heathen gods. The Pilgrims were so thankful that they rounded up all their new friends and banished them to reservations, occasionally invading the new tribal homelands to dig for oil and uranium. No good deed goes unrewarded.
• The annual Taylor Canyon Ward Turkey Bowl -- This is a neighborhood/church football game played every morning on Thanksgiving. The old guys (roughly anyone over the age of 21) take on the young guys, and it gets surprisingly competitive. My dad once separated a shoulder in it, and I have a friend who had to get knee surgery after it. It's full contact flag-football, and everyone prays for snow the night before. There's also an award given for ugliest uniform, and I'm a competitor for it every year. I think this year I'm going to go with an ancient pair of yellowed long-johns with neon green short shorts over the top, a blaze orange sweatshirt and a red and white stocking cap with a little red ball on the end. How can I lose?
• And finally, best of all...handprint turkey decorations. Does anyone else have an unhealthy fascination with these? Remember when you were in elementary school and you'd trace a pear shape on brown paper, cut it out, and then glue on plastic eyes and a yellow beak? Then you'd cut out one of those weird red things turkeys have on their necks (called a waddle, if I'm not mistaken) and glue it onto your creation. Finally, you'd trace your hands on some white paper, cut out those hand prints, and glue them in back of the turkey's body making feet and feathers. A few crayons would give your turkey some color, and then it was time to hang it on the fridge. Remember? And if your teacher made more than twenty grand a year, she might splurge and buy real feathers and pipe-cleaners so you could decorate your turkey with those. Ahhh, let's all sit back and reminisce. Good times. Almost brings a tear to my eye. For those of you who blocked out the painful handprint turkey-making memories, I'll post a finished one on here. And don't forget to draw little bloody arrows sticking out of your turkey where the Indians shot him, like I always used to do. I guess the Native Americans did contribute something to our culture, besides drunkenness and illiteracy.

Labels: The Magical Handprint Turkey