It is the Day of el Turkey and so, if you’re usually an ungrateful bastard (like me), this is the day you are strong-armed into being thankful for the things (not) in your life.
I typically go kicking and screaming into this fascistic style of thanks. Frankly I’d rather drink a few beers and gripe about things which irritate me (read: everything). But no, I have to be thankful about all the blessings and the good things and the blah to the blah blah.
So I will give thanks.
Fortunately, I have found a loophole.
Here’s my list of things which I am thankful for…each in a couple of ways.
First and foremost, I am thankful for my family. We have our squabbles and issues, but there is not another group of people I’d rather share DNA with. Also, like me, they’re pervious to guilt, so if I ever need a kidney, they’ll be easy picking.
As thankful as I am for them, I am at times equally as thankful for the 4,298 miles that separate us and caller ID on my mobile phone. Absence makes the heart, well, you know…
Right up there with my family are my friends, who I am enormously thankful for. They are smart, supportive nerds with whom I spend most of my time belly laughing or discussing fictional characters from other galaxies. Moreover, there is no substitute for having smart people in your life who take you seriously.
I am just as thankful that I am not one of them. I have by far the best hair of us all, I am not from Wisconsin, and plus, no kids. Also, I’d rather be me than one of the dudes who have to deal with me.
I am thankful for my students. Whenever someone says something like ‘The opportunity to work with young people has been…’ it sounds like a line from a card found in Hallmark’s ‘gag-inducing cliché’ section. But it’s true. Working with young people can be energizing, interesting, and incredibly rewarding.
I am equally – if not more – thankful for the self-control and breathing techniques which keep me from bludgeoning one of them to death with a nearby chair on a daily basis.
I am thankful for my colleagues. As you know, work is hard, and only your colleagues fully understand what you go through day in and day out. Being lucky enough to work with a group of fun-loving and level-headed professionals has been a privilege.
I am also thankful that none of them can read my mind when their phones ring while they are out of the office.
Which.
Happens.
Constantly.
Because if there are two phone-related superpowers that Czech women possess, it’s 1. choosing the most annoying phone ring that has ever attacked an aural canal, and 2. being in another room when it rings out across a room.
I am thankful for my health. I am a forty-one year old dude who has nothing to complain about health-wise, especially when I see what others my age are sometimes dealing with. This is often pointed out in order to put smaller problems into perspective. People say: ‘At least you have your health.’ And while I do agree, at that moment I am more thankful that my parents taught me not to shout things like ‘Fuck off!’ into the faces of those who overuse clichés.
This is going to make me sound like a dork, but I am thankful for my cat. If you don’t have a pet, you don’t know the sort of pleasure that comes from the unconditional love of a pet. My cat doesn’t shout ‘I hate you!’ when I don’t buy her a treat or a toy and she is always (eventually) thrilled when I come home. Also, she probably won’t grow up to smoke cigarettes or drink beer in a Walmart parking lot. She will, however, sit on my stomach and purr while I read.
As thankful as I am for the cat, I am also thankful that she can’t open doors and she won’t ever be able to tell people what she has observed in my flat.
There’s my list of dual thanks folks. If you have a dual thanks of your own to add, please feel free! If not, have a great Thanksgiving or have a great day of shaming revellers by bringing up slaughter and genocide.
Happy Thanksgiving!
