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NOEL

14 December 2002, 00:00

Merry Whatever…

And we’re off…

We are shifting into second gear as we round that big old holiday, hairpin curve. Halloween is over and done with. I had no trick-or-treaters, so that I got to have about three pounds of candy, and one tremendous stummy-girglie. I sat, burping big sugar clouds, while watching a marathon of “Ghosts Across America” or “Spirits Up Your Shorts” – whatever that show was called. It use to be that we would dress up, get a demon buzz on and party most of the night at the bar, but nowadays a really wicked toostie roll overdose usually does me good.

Now, we are sqatting on the doormat of Thanksgiving. Many a normal human being will summon the strength of ten men as they attempt to be civil to barely related relatives, all the while holding back the urge to pummel the kids as they shriek when a 200 foot Grover balloon bounds down the street to Times Square, all the while praying that they can get the oven hot enough to kill the e-coli crawling around the turkey they didn’t have time to thaw properly. A really successful Thanksgiving is when all the kids are STILL alive at the end of the night, and most of the men are wedged deep into Lazy Boys, held here by inertia and cornbread stuffing. If there is only two or three really big drunken domestic squabbles by the end of the night, then it has been a banner evening – if there are no weepy, intoxicated Aunties yelling at sleepy, football watching Uncles to zip up their collective pants, than we can call it a good holiday.

Some of the things I am thankful this holiday:

- I thank god that I have forsaken financial piece of mind, and physical social interaction to satisfy an ever growing, and insatiable appetite for newer and better computer equipment and a bigger pipe to transport me to my virtual world. A day without internet is a day without sunshine.

- I am also thankful for my little family… my burping, farting, snoring little family of three dogs, a rotating and vassilating number of rodents and one slightly expanding whahizface. So far, the reasons not to kill them all and bury them in the backyard outnumber slightly the ones that make this option look appealing.

- I am thankful for friends that laugh at my dirty jokes, love me when I’m horrible, sooth me when I’m angry, placate me when I am unreasonable and haven’t called the police on me yet, even when I emailed them nudie pictures that I took of myself when I had that whole bottle of Tuaca.

- Boy, am I thankful for absorbant paper towelettes, and fabric softner.

- I thank whatever gods put Tiramisu on this earth – possibly the best dessert on the face of the planet.

- I am thankful for Bob – my lawyer, Dr. Bill – my vet, Mr. Paul – my boss, and that-blonde-haired-chick who cashes my checks, even when I signed it with a blue crayon because I had no pen.

- I am thankful for Kiefer Sutherland, because he just makes me a DANDY RANDY of a girlie.

- I am thankful I wasn’t killed in a plane accident, or struck down with a mailbox full of anthrax, or shot by drug dealers, or fondled by the disgusting, or sick, or crippled, or attacked by drooling, rabid internet stalkers.

But most of all, I am thankful that there is a 95% chance that the world won’t blow up and the heat will be coming back sometime in April, cause its fucking FREEZING here now…