The Secret History of Thanksgiving

The Secret History of Thanksgiving,
As Told Through Traditional Food Preparations.

In the dark and still forests, our ancestors hunted their enemies, the dangerous alien bird mutants, who had come from beyond the moon. Their feathers dripped acid, their eyes burned black holes into our flesh, but our forefathers were brave, and tore apart their extra terrestial flesh and fed it to their dogs and children. Dogs first. The war raged for centuries, as the legions of bird mutants filled the skies like drops of water.

It threatened to go on for millenia more, and would have, except for the brave sacrifice of a young skinny girl, who camouflaged herself in leaves and mushrooms, and infiltrated the aliens secret base nest.

She lived in caves underneath the nest for months, living off root vegetables she pulled from the earth around her. Her skin became orange and tough like their peels. Her teeth crumbled from malnutrition.

Stealthily, every day while the despicable fowl were sleeping, she planted little round bombs, made of clay and butter from the combustible cows of Colorado, under the foundations of the base. It was an arduous mission, she longed for it's completion. One morning, finally, she saw the sign, hidden by her cave entrance.

And that evening, as the sun went down, she crept out of the cave. The alien bird mutants were rousing from their roosts, and she was spotted by a sentry too late, standing victorious by the edge of the dark woods, detonator in hand. Her village watched from the hills, as she hit the button, and blew the monsters back into the sky.

Their red blood rained down for hours.

And turned the rivers and wells to sludge, destroying the villagers' crops.
Famine threatened all of humanity.

But the resourceful mothers gathered the roots under the earth, and fed their families pie until the waters cleared.

And also, maybe lingonberries? The history books are unclear. But tonight we celebrate the actions of one brave little girl, who single-handedly won the war with the Great Mutant Turkey Aliens. We remember you Macy. We will never forget.

Seven Things You Should Not Do This Thanksgiving

1) Go to the grocery store the weekend before.

Sure, everyone tells you to go then, so you don't end up running there 10pm Wednesday night. But the truth is, I would rather have to wait behind five people with cans of cranberry sauce than one middle aged woman with an entire cart, a handful of coupons, and a checkbook.

2) Make plans for Thanksgiving Night, after dinner.

This is traditional party night for kids home from college, at least it was for my friends. Guess what? You're not in college anymore. Sit around with your family, get drunk, watch a movie. Make fun of your mom for asking questions through the whole movie. DO THE DISHES FOR YOUR DAD. (note: this is not me promising to do the dishes Dad)

3) Sleep with anyone you used to sleep with before.

The worst thing about the holidays is that everyone comes home and all of a sudden all these people who left town are back, and you're out drunk with them, and things happen. That shouldn't happen. Make a point to only sleep with people you haven't slept with before.

4) Spend all Thanksgiving Day drinking

You won't really be as hungry as you think, even if you don't eat all day. And you'll be too tired to clear the table, which will mean that once again, your sister will take all the leftover turkey skin. Turkey skin is important. Win the leftovers war.

5) Leave the turkey out on top of the stove (if you have animals)

My parents used to have this black cat, Muon, who was a champion turkey stealer. Even if we covered it with foil. This little shit could even open the refrigerator door, so we had to keep putting a stool in front of it.

6) Make any kind of fancy cranberry sauce.

Your family won't like it.

7) Give your siblings advice. Or rather, give anyone advice.

99% of family altercations are started by you thinking you need to advise somebody on something. Nobody needs advice on Thanksgiving. They just need to eat, drink, and tell horrible yet funny political stories.

Liveblogging Thanksgiving Dinner

1:30pm "If we're going to be an evil empire, then we can't do it halfway."

2:15pm - "she's teaching people how to cut condoms in half and use them as dental dams." "I think that's so bad, you don't need to be ingesting spermicide" "Doesn't clingwrap work?"

2:45pm - "So other than not liking to be on the wrong side of domination games, how's your life going?"

3:15 "We should make a video where God's voice is the window start-up noise"

3:20 "Time for the most useful part of my education, how to dissolve salt into water."
"What if something happens and you're in charge of getting all the salt back into the ocean to restore the universe's balance?" "Then let's start with the layer of salt that the ocean has exploded, covering the land in a death shroud." "Okay, let's start there."

3:30pm - "So they found your well with a forked stick?"
"Yeah, it turns out that's just how they assume you do that."

3:40pm-"You just want to say to him, just tell me what you want."
"Levi, was it because you were inefficient, or do you screw something up?"

3:45pm -"Have you seen New Moon yet? I've heard it's great if you like topless American Indian guys acting homoerotic around each other"

4:00pm- "This came to our house for you. What is it?"
"It's a square dressing dance"
"It's part of my one woman show."

"Jay-Z is also good at talking smack. I was thinking about some smack I should have talked yesterday and I wish Jay-Z had been there to help me."

4:05pm " I think Kanye West is my spirit animal"

4:18pm "Does mom like the table wine or the Dago wine?" "I don't see any dago wine"

4:19pm "I'm not doing shit until 4:45pm."

4:20pm "He goes absolutely nuts when he's discussing biological membranes. It's hypnotizing to watch."

4:24pm- "wouldn't it be awesome if we could just replace our muscles with spider silk" "That's a lot of spider silk" "They can mass synthesize it in Germany now." "Well, that would take care of cannibalism right? World wide problem."

4:32pm iphone fun



5:05pm - "I lost my pumpkin pie recipe." "I'll need the southern comfort under that cabinet,"

4 laptops. 1 Death Cab for Cutie.

5:15 "Dad should lift the turkey." "Its only 21 pounds. I'm a 27 yr old girl in her prime. That's all I am. Up in here."

5:10pm "Want a jigger?" "That's not even a jigger" "Take it Dad."

5:20pm - "you should taste it to see if it's too salty." "pshaw" "don't pshaw me, I'm always right." "'your not always right." "Yes I am." "You got a lot of gall."

5:45pm Dinner

6:15pm "I'm doing a country revue/adult sex education one woman show"

6:20pm "I think the Benedictine monks are trying to muscle out the Genessee Monks with those products." "Monk wars." "Fruitcake wars."

6:30pm "You picked the least fun dog ever." "C'mon baby, you wanna go outside. You don't have to take that from her. She's the middle child"

6:40pm "Wampanoag were the tribe at the first thanksgiving." "I have watched so much Angel lately, I automatically heard demon after Wampanoag."

7pm Nobody wants to play Risk.

Coma

7:45pm "Oh my god, you mean, teeth are right next to each other in your mouth? Amazing."

8:09pm "Everyone is so down on the 2nd law of Thermodynamics." "No, nobody says that."

8:10pm "You and friends should do a parady of the Glenn Beck show where you get really upset and riled up about our freedoms being taken away by the universe."

8:25pm I'm taking a to-go cup of Schnapps.

8:27pm "There's also this dating game where everyone is a flesh eating monster except this one girl, and she then eats all the flesh eating monsters."

8:30pm. "Mother, leave the pie out."

A 30 yr old American Woman's List

- I am thankful that I have a home, and in that home I have a computer, and for that computer I can easily buy as much access to the Internet that I want without having it rationed or go out all the time, enabling me to instantly search for things like “actual entrances to hell” and “cranberry chutney”, or read about new designer drugs in the UK, or waste my time refreshing Mystery Google.

- I am thankful that the police do not beat down my door, and drag me off to a dirty prison in a cave, where they tear off my fingernails and toenails because I wanted to take a class in political science or religious history, and that I am daily concerned with how my hair looks because I don’t have to walk around with it covered, or shaved because my husband died.

- I am thankful for the fact that if I get raped, I know where to go and what to do, and I know it’s not my fault, and I’m not going to hell.

- I am very thankful that I know I’m not going to hell. Or anywhere else. I am thankful for the opportunity to know that.

- I am thankful for having a job that does not require me to get dirty or slaughter things or get a terrible lung disease or have awful back problems or stand up all day.

- I am thankful that my biggest concern with food is the inconvenience of going to the grocery store the day before Thanksgiving just to buy garlic, which I forgot when I went to the grocery store Monday, because I can go to the grocery store whenever I want.

- I am thankful that as a single unmarried girl, I can own a large, expensive, complicated machine that is entirely mine and takes me wherever I want to go when I want to.

- I am also thankful that I can rent my own place.

- I am thankful for having the skills and means to meet lots of different kinds of people, whomever I feel like meeting, and collecting a large and varied group of friends who make all different kinds of salaries, and come from different places around the country, and know all sorts of different things.

- I am thankful for having thumbs, and not being a cat or a cow or a bug.

- I am thankful for having an entire closet of clothes, even if I wear the same 5 shirts every week.

- I am thankful for not being shunned by the community because I don’t go to church and sometimes show cleavage.

- I am thankful for not having children, and for cheap accessible birth control.

- I am thankful for having no diseases or major health problems. I am thankful for having health insurance, free clinics, county hospitals, free flu vaccinations, student loans, unemployment services, and welfare.

- I am thankful my country owns most of the guns, even if I don’t always agree with how they use them.

- I am thankful I live in a temperate zone, with seemingly endless fresh water within walking distance, fertile land, and very few monsoons/hurricanes/tornadoes/hail storms/ blizzards/man eating animals.

- I am thankful for being aware of how much I don't know, so I can be continuously interested in stuff.

- I am thankful for being safe, independent, alive, and educated.

- I am thankful my family members are not Republicans, or Evangelicals, mean, or stupid. I would still love them. But it’s nice that I don’t have to try too hard.

- Oh, and cats.

- And cable.

Why isn't Thanksgiving here already?

I seriously just want an excuse to cook and drink all day. In my mother's kitchen, which is nicer and has counter space. Also, I want permission to put my Christmas lights up without being pigeonholed as a scum sucking obnoxious twat. Or being struck by lightning. Which is what happens, right?

Alton solves Thanksgiving

My mother refuses to brine the turkey she is cooking.
I cannot convince her otherwise, which means I'm going to have to buy my own turkey. Like, a small one. I'll buy it now and stick it in the freezer for February. However, I wish my mother would watch this.



Also, Alton and I feel the same way about stuffing. I'm okay with dressing. When it gets crispy and such in the oven. Not soggy inside the birds EMPTIED CAVITY.



I have celebrity flutters for Alton. Don't we all? Look how cute his watch is!



I don't know. Maybe I'll just drive through Southern Ohio and try to run a turkey over. I remember those damn turkeys at Lake Hope, gathering next to the cabin at 4am and making more noise than a freight train. I have motivation. I will make a headband out of it's feathers.