Things I'm Not Thankful For: Mouth-Watering Edition

by David Pardue


-----

Our week-long Turkey Fest continues with a mouth-watering list of grievances that'll make your mouth water, your stomach churn, and your bowels quiver in anticipation of the meal you're mere days away from consuming.

-----

I am not thankful for much this so-called "Thanksgiving season." I hate the whole thing. Is it any wonder that Thanksgiving sucks? We have a feasting holiday based on an historical dinner that took place in New England. This is the place that invented the "boiled dinner": you throw everything into a pot (corned beef, turnips, green beans, potatoes) until you boil the flavor out of it all. Then serve.

New England's highest form of cuisine, meanwhile, is a bottom-feeding crustacean that many cultures don't eat because their systems can't even digest it. New England is also where the Irish came after the potato famine, because when you've eaten nothing but potatoes for twenty years, suddenly boiled dinner sounds good to you. Is there anything good that can come from the palate of a New Englander? I guess what I'm trying to say is: Fuck you, pilgrim.

Let's break it down, and not in the good Technotronic way.

1. I am not thankful for cranberry sauce. What a crap fruit the cranberry is. Do you ever find yourself munching cranberries mindlessly? No. Can you even munch a cranberry? Not to my knowledge. You may have been introduced to "Craisins" on an airplane flight, but do you find yourself craving Craisins at any other time? No. Let's face it, even The Cranberries were a crap Irish band. Cranberry sauce is only included in the traditional Thanksgiving dinner because it probably helps you pass the rest of meal through your system more easily.

2. I am not thankful for yams. What a shitty fake potato the yam is. Oh sure, it seems like a great idea, a "sweet potato," if you will. But when you get right down to it, it's a stringy, mushy, pale imitation of a potato that, even in it's natural state, is one blender setting away from puree. Yams may have their fans out there, but consider this: imagine drinking the syrupy water from a can of yams. I do believe I've made my point.

3. I am not thankful for gravy. What an assy topping gravy is. It is liquid poo. Do I need to say more?

4. I am not thankful for pumpkin pie. What a nutrageous thing the pumpkin is. Gourds are like retarded vegetables. They look like vegetables on the outside, but on the inside, there's something clearly wrong with them. This includes pumpkins, despite the fact that they may have their fifteen minutes of fame at the end of October. Don't be fooled: pumpkin pie at Thanksgiving is a trick. When your family selects a pumpkin to carve for Halloween, do they not select the prettiest, most rotund, most blemish-free pumpkin they can find? Of course they do. So, all the good pumpkins are gone by the beginning of November. Guess what the pumpkin pie at Thanksgiving is made out of? All the unsold, fetid, oozing, pestilent, bug-infested, mis-shapen, misbegotten pumpkins they can't give away at the pumpkin patch. That's what you're eating. Enjoy!

5. I am not thankful for stuffing. At least not until the day after Thanksgiving, when the unsold boxes of stuffing go on sale for half price at the local supermarket. Then all of a sudden I LOOOOOVE stuffing. In fact, at that price, I eat the stuff for the next month. My December diet is usually just stuffing. And for breakfast, a nice heaping bowl of Lucky Charms, served with egg nog instead of milk. December rocks.

6. Most of all, I am not thankful for turkey. What a low class food source the turkey is. Turkey is the Alaskan whitefish of the poultry family. It is Ghetto Chicken. Have you ever tried to eat a turkey leg at Six Flags? At first your eyes are drawn in by the massive Henry VIII-like size of the drumstick. But the minute you sink your teeth into the awful meat and find yourself flossing with sinew, you know that you've been had. Instead of eating a turkey, just eat three chickens. You'll be much happier in the end, and it will probably be cheaper too. After all, shouldn't you be afraid of eating an over-sized flightless bird that has parts (gizzard, giblets, that floppy tumor-ridden thing that hangs on their necks) that don't occur naturally on any other animal? SHOULDN'T YOU?

Huh. Weird thing. I'm hungry now. Are you?

Aw, Thanksgiving. I'm sorry. I can't be mad at you. C'mere and let me eat you.

-----

David Pardue is author of the forthcoming movies Dawn/Juan, Eels on a Submarine, and Rainbows & Unicorns. He lives in West Hollywood and is currently spending his time trying to convince various Hollywood producer-types that they should put forth his god damn movies already.