Our Thangsgiving Ritual

Every year Linda & I have a Thanksgiving ritual. Erev Thanksgiving we take our nieces and nephews to watch the balloons for the Macy’s parade being blown up. We also take the girls for manicures and pedicures then a trip to the candy store where the goal is to spend more of our money than the year before. The family record if I remember correctly is $190.00. The candy (or at least most of it) is consumed later in the evening where you can hear shouts of “Party, Party and No Sleep, No Sleep”. During the party we also try to have a theme. The best theme and/or project we ever did was to create a “family tree” to be presented to Linda’s folks. I printed out pictures from my collection of “family photos” and the kids cut them up and placed them on a tree that they had drawn. The kids did present that project to their grandparents and they couldn’t have been happier if you gave them a new car.

Two years ago I challenged my 15 year old nephew to have a pedicure. I even offered him $100.00 as a bribe to accept my offer. He did me one better by offering to do it for free by daring me to have one first. Let the record show that I “chickened out”. This year I challenged my 10 year old nephew to do the same this year. I added a $50.00 bribe to “sweeten” the pot. Not only has he accepted my offer but he did it faster than Brittany Spears would shed her top, laughing all the time.

The moral of the story?

When will I ever learn that I will never out think my nephews? If history is the judge, never is the appropriate answer.

Atheism

Being an atheist must really suck. You have no holidays to celebrate, you have no days in the year where alternate side of the parking rules are relaxed specifically for you, no specific music to share at family gatherings and most importantly no special foods to consume for that special occasion. You also do not have any supreme being to absolve you of any sins. You don’t even have a United Nations organization to turn to for relief. Atheists have no supreme being to thank for making that last second foul shot or for kicking the winning field goal in the fourth quarter. Whose will is it when caught in a hurricane or earthquake? What are your chances of winning the lottery when your competition is getting help from you know who? Do you even have a “fundamentalist” group to be part of? When in the throes of lovemaking can you ever say “Oh my God”? If you sneeze do your fellow atheists even bother to acknowledge it?

To alleviate the problem the United Nations intends to begin a Food for empty promises program. Now that’s a program the UN is qualified to run. This problem too must be Israel’s fault. Therefore I suggest Israelis trade their designation as the “Chosen People” to the atheist movement for a commandment to be named later as a form of reparation. Hallmark is preparing to sell atheist spiritual greeting cards with an empty message on the inside. They should corner the market with an aggressive sales program.