Thankful

On this day of Thanksgiving, it’s time to take stock of the things we are thankful for. You, gentle reader, are the unsuspecting victim of just such an epistle.

I am thankful for my wife. I am thankful for my kids. I am thankful for my job, my car that still runs, my back that doesn’t hurt anymore, my basement that doesn’t flood anymore, my cats who give me hours of entertainment, and my computers that provide my lifeline to the world outside my head.

I’m thankful for not being a KGB spy, a Sunni member of the Iraqi parliament, an anti-Syrian member of the Lebannese cabinet, or a 92-year-old trigger-happy Atlanta woman who covers for addicts and drug dealers.

I’m thankful for my watch, which literally takes a licking and keeps on ticking. My nephew got hold of it one day and turned it into a chewy toy for their dog.

I’m thankful for cell phones. Good Lord, how on earth did civilization make it this far without them? If I leave mine at home by accident, I start sweating and itching all over. They’re like heroin, I swear.

I’m thankful that neither I, nor my kids, give two hoots and a holler about the latest Sony-Tendo-Soft Micro-Station-Box-Palooza game doo-dad. But that’s not really surprising: all of our IQ’s are above 60.

I’m tentatively thankful for the Democrats’ eviscerating of the Republican Congress a few weeks back. Thankful for the change in leadership; tentative because there is no guarantee they won’t be introducing legislation to ban Fruity Pebbles and make it illegal to drive cars powered by anything except shredded copies of Ann Coulter’s book. I hope they make the most of this opportunity, and don’t waste it on the capricious whims of the extreme left.

I’m thankful that Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper has merely made a tactical error in placating the Parti Quebecois with a motion recognizing Quebec as a “nation within a united Canada,” and not handed the whiny ingrates carte blanche to alter the Constitution, or to outright secede. I hope I will be even more thankful next year, by which time I hope that the rest of Canada decides they’ve had their fill of these contempuous malcontents, and puts an end to their bitching and moaning once and for all.

I’m thankful for a dry fall, which makes my leaf raking less arduous. I’m thankful for gas prices dropping, making my commute less expensive. I’m thankful for extended director’s cut versions of all three ‘Lord of the Rings’ movies, that keep the kids out of my hair for upwards of four hours at a stretch. I’m thankful for a good cigar, a well-mixed ginger ale, gel insoles, NCAA hockey, and the letter ‘T’.

And I’m thankful that I don’t have to put up with an editor, who would likely deficate all over these musings before depositing them in the nearest circular file.