Three Thanksgiving things that I’m submitting immediately to the “Stuff White People Like” database:
1. Thanksgiving Day runs: Like many semi-lazy humans, I participated in an extended, organized run yesterday. It’s common knowledge that such Thanksgiving Day runs are notorious for presenting the most variable weather conditions existing outside of Death Valley. I have now completed Thanksgiving runs in Washington, D.C., and San Antonio, Texas. In each run, the weather was sub-arctic at the starting gun. By the third mile, the weather had heated up to the point where anyone wearing sleeves looked as out of place as the polar bear in ‘Lost.’ I am told that all Thanksgiving runs — including those in Miami, Topeka and Duluth — feature such wild, inappropriate temperature swings. As usual, awards were presented to the fastest runners, which I found strange, because anyone who was able to even loosen up at 7 a.m. in below-freezing temperatures should be taken immediately to the nearest institute of kinesiology for testing.
The previous two years, I ran a 10K. This year, I ran a 5K. As always, by the end of the run, I looked like I wanted the state of Texas to award me the death penalty.
2. Watching the Rockettes: If you’re like my family, then you completely lost it when you saw Matt Lauer introduce the Rockettes yesterday. The Rockettes are one of those organizations that, I’m quite convinced, only exist because people are inherently stupid. The Rockettes exist almost entirely out of nature, a homogeneous group that wears the same outfits and does the same routine every year. And every year, Americans completely lose it at the sight of these women. Most things obey the law that Einstein once wrote of: insanity is doing the same thing year after year and expecting different results every time. But the weird thing is, watching the Rockettes and NOT expecting people to go nuts would be considered insane.
3. Low-quality sporting events: We are at the point in society where we, as Americans, should no longer allow the Detroit Lions or the Dallas Cowboys to play football on Thanksgiving. We should absolutely demand that the NFL, on the one day when no less than 93 percent of the population is watching football, actually present us with viewing options. And it is unconscionable that other networks have not stepped up their TV watching options. I’m on my ass. I’ve just eaten what amounts to the gross domestic product of Guatemala. I’ve poured enough alcohol into my system to lose the ability to operate machinery as complicated as a remote control. That there are not better channel choices — which is to say, more violent events featuring humans colliding at high speeds — is shameful. We deserve the lowest in high definition gladiatorial competitions, and the Detroit Lions do not come close to fulfilling our needs.
