If it gets me food, I'll give thanks

Like many people, I think Thanksgiving is the best holiday we have going for us, but for me it falls just a smidge short of being the absolute perfect holiday because I balk at being bossed around.

Here we have this holiday the sole intent of which (in all its awesomeness) is to bring together family, friends and strays hungry for loads of food and an overabundance of togetherness — then people go and start telling me I'm supposed to be thankful for all the good things that make my life "a joy to live." That I'm supposed to declare my thankfulness because it 'tis the season.

Know what I declare? Shut up.

Don't tell me what to do. I'll be thankful when I feel like being thankful. In fact, I'm feeling some strong thankfulness possibilities for spring of 2012. But really? I'm supposed to pull some I'm-so-thankful-fors right out of my turkey gizzard just because it's the fourth Thursday of the 11th month.

I'm sorry, but I don't function well when I'm being told what to do.

I do, apparently, respond well to blackmail.

Since I have been informed by certain people that I will not be allowed to partake in the Thanksgiving meal if I don't also partake in the giving of thanks for my good fortunes, I am conceding the point. I am giving thanks. I am nothing if not fond of good food.

So, let's see. I'm thankful that bug season is over and that I have almost all the cobwebs cleaned out of the nooks and crannies of my home, which is, apparently, not spider-proof in any sense of the word. But that's OK because I'm, um, thankful that I get to study the arachnid branch of nature so intimately.

I am thankful for the recent high winds that raked all my leaves away for me. And thankful that I live in the country so those leaves don't blow into my neighbor's yard.

I give random thanks for: all the drive-up window people who give my dog treats; the miracle of modern indoor plumbing; honey bees; digital camera technology; velcro; and chocolate, the food of the gods.

I am thankful that hydrogen peroxide and rubbing alcohol company, Vi-Jon, leaped ahead of the competition by figuring out that clear-running medical fluids should have a flip-top, controllable-flow, squirt spout. That way, during the medical emergency for which the fluids are supposed to help, you don't have to twist off the lid and awkwardly pour out (mostly onto the floor) ten times as much fluid as needed while trying to flush your booboo.

And speaking of booboos, I am thankful that my wrenched back is getting better. This leads me to be thankful for my husband who readily volunteered to help me put my socks and underwear on for more than two weeks.

Which also leads me to be thankful that even after 22 years of marriage and my slow decline into middle-aged spread, my husband is still interested in me enough to think that wrestling socks onto my oversized feet is adequate payment for the opportunity to put my unders on me.

Which, of course, leads me to be thankful that I'm still here and breathing.