Name Them One by One

As I am sure everybody is well aware, Thursday is Thanksgiving. It is this time of year when we are encouraged to take stock of our lives and give thanks for those blessings we have received. Unless of course you’re not American. If you’re, say, Canadian, this is the time of year where it starts to get really, unbelievably frickin cold. Yes, we Americans humble ourselves by giving thanks once a year. It is just one more reason we are SO much better than the rest of the world which is too lazy for such things. Yes, Mexico, I’m looking at you.

I’ve already started my list of blessings received. It was slow going at first, as my faithful readers may have guessed. It would seem that I do not have much to be thankful for. I hate my job. I’m too poor to properly heat my apartment. I’m underachieving, lonely, and desperate. My car is in dire need of a good working over if I want it to pass inspection by the end of the month. It needs brake work, a windshield wiper, and every time I look at my tires they practically scream at me: “Hey, James, remember when we had tread.” To which I respond: “Shut Up Tires! I’m balding too. You don’t hear me bitching about it.” At which point my neighbors call their children in and shut their doors on the ‘crazy guy who yells at tires’. I am also unpopular in my neighborhood, not to mention with the ladies. Last time I bought a girl a drink at the bar, she asked for it to go.

So, yeah, my life isn’t all roses, sunshine, and dance-a-thons, but that doesn’t mean I have nothing to be thankful for. I have a lot to be thankful for. I have my health (here’s the part where I inform you that I work out. I assure you I do work out. If you where here with me right now, I’d insist you feel my bicep. Rest assured knowing it is rock hard. You’ll just have to take my word for it. These guns are so impressive Democrats in congress think they should be banned.) I have my mental health. I have what’s left of my emotional health. I have some friends, some of whom might not actually stab me in the back to help themselves. I just earned ten cents in free gas a gallon at Giant Eagle. So, really, once I reflect on it, my life’s actually quite sweet. Here’s just a short list of the things I am extremely thankful for.

- I’ve never been to a Turkish prison.

And then there’s...other stuff…which I can’t really remember… right now.

Okay. Okay. Never being in a Turkish prison is the only thing for which I’m extremely thankful. Actually, it may be the only thing I’m thankful for at all. I mean I’m not in that good of health. I’m so poor I hardly eat. I’m so thin and pale I look like a cancer patient. Don’t even get me started on my mental and emotional health. That’s it. I can’t think of anything else right now to be thankful for except never being in a Turkish prison. But, I happen to think never being in a Turkish prison is a pretty damn good thing to be thankful for. I’m sure everyone who has ever been in a Turkish prison wish they had never been there. Do you have any idea what goes on in those Turkish prisons? Neither do I exactly, but I have a fairly good idea that I wouldn’t like it at all. So, that’s it. When my family gathers around our Thanksgiving table and we each take turns listing the things we are thankful for, mixed in amongst all the thanks for new jobs, new relationships, and good luck, the only thing I’ll have is that I’m thankful for never being in a Turkish prison.

I just hope Uncle Kenny isn’t there. That would be really uncomfortable.

Shalom
James