Unthanksgiving

For some reason, the stars seem to align themselves just in time to turn late November into a great big dose of bad experiences.

On Sunday, guess who started throwing up blood? If you guessed your friendly ZZ-List Blogger, give yourself 10 points. Insert one huge ulcer, which suddenly decided to start acting like Mount Vesuvius in my gastrointestinal tract. No warning whatsoever. Nada. Zippo.

Which means I'm on a very strict diet.

No heavy spices. No garlic. No coffee. No chocolate. No gravy. No fatty butter. No delicious frosting. No mulled cider. No cheese. No alcohol. No salt. No pepper. No tea. No cranberries. Essentially, this has carved my entire menu down to peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, dry toast, plain rice, and chicken. And water. That's it, and I have to stick to it for another three weeks. Make that at least another three weeks, depending on how fast this literal hole in my stomach can heal.

This is not the kind of thing one wants to hear just before Thanksgiving. To be perfectly honest, I wouldn't want to hear about it at ANY time, but for it to happen now is a perfect time to make me hate life.

Add on to this a fairly decent-sized bout of the flu. So now not only do I have a searing pain in my stomach, add on the full array of flu symptoms. Plus tack on another two weeks of hacking my lungs out, just as I have for every flu I've had since high school.

But I could still have the turkey, right? Right?

Well, possibly...

So with great anticipation, I wake up at 5 in the morning on Thursday to put the bird in the slow cooker. I go to the back corner of the kitchen counter, where I had left a nice, plump, juicy, delicious turkey to completely thaw. And there's no bird. Yet there is, for some reason, the sound of a very satisfied dog emanating from behind the recliner.

According to my amateur forensic analysis, my corgi suddenly decided that he actually DID have a vertical leap ability when properly motivated, one capable of clearing 3 feet with room to spare. Ein drags the bird off the counter, then across the living room carpet three times, and proceeds to eat his way into sheer bliss.

So instead of cooking turkey, I start cleaning turkey. And dogs. And carpets. And tile floors. And cats. And counters. And dogs again. Ever try to clean turkey fat off of dogs more than halfway passed out in a tryptophan coma? Not easy. However, it is a much easier task than cleaning up the same turkey fat ground into carpeting.

And to top it all off perfectly? It was my birthday on Thursday. So I lit a candle, stuck it in a peanut-butter and strawberry-jelly sandwich, and pretended it was a huge feast fit for a made-for-television holiday special. Unfortunately, my imagination was not quite up to that gargantuan of a task.

Take it away, Meat.



Back when I was a kid, I asked my father if I had come with a registration card and extended warranty. He looks straight in my eyes and says, "Yes, son. But we threw it out with the placenta."

Nobody ever keeps those damn things, do they.

Life In Retail

SCENE: A bookstore at Denver International Airport

Customer: Do you have the new Sarah Palin book?

Clerk: Which one? Going Rogue or The Persecution Of Sarah Palin?

Customer: I don't know. It's the new Sarah Palin book!

Clerk: Her own book, or the unauthorized yet still highly favorable account of her time on the presidential ticket?

Customer: HER! BOOK!

Clerk: No, not yet. The release date isn't until next week.

Clerk (sub voca): Even though it was written by a ghost writer.

Customer: Oh come on! Everybody has it!

Clerk: I'm sorry, sir. The official release date isn't until the 17th.

Customer: I know you have them! Sell me a copy right now!

Clerk: I'm sorry, sir. Even if I did have a copy in the store (which I do not), we are not allowed to sell books before their official release date.

Customer: You know what I think? I think you're just part-and-parcel of the left-wing conspiracy against Sarah Palin! You wouldn't even sell her book if you DID have copies!

Clerk (motioning to copies of The Persecution of Sarah Palin sitting behind him): I assure you, sir, that that is not the case.

Customer: I want to talk to your manager! Right now!

Clerk: Certainly, sir. Here is my General Manager's business card. She is available for all customers to speak with at any time.

Customer: Good! I want you fired for this!

[Insert 5-minutes of Customer yelling at General Manager]

Customer (putting away his phone): I'm reporting you to the BBB! And FOX News!

Customer exeunt.

[Phone rings. General Manager is calling the store.]

General Manager: What. The. Hell.

Clerk: Don't worry. That pretty much sums it all up.

[Clerk facedesks repeatedly. In front of customers. Repeat facedesk until fractured skull.]