Food, Playboy, beer deserve thanks

  Adam Epstein Epstein realizes there are
no stupid questions, unless they’re really, really stupid. E-mail
him at [email protected].
Click
Here for more articles by Adam Epstein

If there’s one thing that can stand the test of time,
it’s a good idea. Or plastic. Or mummies that are preserved
really well by skilled embalmers that know what they’re doing
with a carafe of formaldehyde. But for brevity’s sake, and
the sake of this column, let’s focus on good ideas. Yeah,
that would be a good idea. Giving thanks is one such good idea. A
week ago today, it was Thanksgiving and many of us sat in dining
rooms at overcrowded tables with family and friends and focused on
eating food, drinking booze, pretending to listen and drinking
booze. On Halloween you give candy, on Christmas you give presents,
on Yom Kippur you give deep-set guilt and on Arbor Day, you
don’t give a damn. I think on Kwanzaa you give Kwanz. Suffice
to say, on Thanksgiving you give thanks. It’s a good idea.
And since this idea is so timeless, the concept of giving thanks
should not be relegated to one specific day. With this in mind, I
feel now is as good a time as ever to give thanks to some of the
things in life many of us so often toss aside like a freshly picked
scab. It’s difficult not to take things for granted; Lord
knows I assumed “Thundercats” would be on television
until the day I died. So let’s give thanks then for all the
people in the world who have jobs you would not do even if it was
your great-grandmother’s dying request. Somebody scrubs the
insides of sewers. Somebody cuts off and flattens buffalos’
testicles in order to make Rocky Mountain Oysters (try ’em
with tartar sauce). Somebody works at the DMV. If these people ever
got together and decided to revolt, we would be in some deep
doo-doo “¦ literally. I’d say about ankle to knee deep,
judging by the amount of people who eat Mexican food in these
parts. Let’s give thanks for our computers’
spellchecker. Without it, eye no they’re wood bee know weigh
four me oar udders two right porpoise full pear-eye-graphs. It
mussed be won of the grate invent shuns of hour thyme. Let’s
give thanks for Playboy Magazine. Year in and year out, Playboy
features some of the best fiction and investigative writers in the
American magazine business. The in-depth coverage of their
exposés and interviews and the imagination of their creative
pieces are a testament to the best of the best in the literary
world. Ray Bradbury, Steven King and countless other dramaturges
have graced its pages. For my money, Playboy is the breast magazine
one can buy. Let’s give thanks for “The
Simpsons,” proof that if there is a God, He (or She, I know I
know) has a stellar sense of humor. Let’s give thanks to all
of the ignorant people in the world. Without their foolish
exhorting and idiotic appearances on shows like “COPS,”
“Judge Judy” and “Meet the Press,” the rest
of us would have one less way to affirm the fact that common sense,
intelligence and worldly understanding are indeed useful and
valiant traits. Let’s give thanks for food. Food is without a
doubt the most innately awesome creation in the entire history of
planetary, universal everythings. Is there anything cooler than
having your normal, boring milk turn to chocolate milk while eating
a bowl of Cocoa Krispies? Has there ever been a greater invention
than the concept of “all you can eat?” I’ll give
you the answer ““ No. There’s an old saying: “Give
a man a fish, and you feed him for a day. Give a man a
pepper-encrusted seared ahi tuna steak with some butter rolls, a
great salad and two scoops of ice cream and you have a new slave
for life.” Let’s give thanks for professors who care
about teaching their students. Let’s give thanks for students
who care about learning from these professors. Let’s give
thanks for marijuana. Let’s give thanks for chapstick and
refrigerators and remote controls, Velcro and jacuzzis and contact
lenses, beer and backrubs and Q-tips and the NCAA basketball
tournament, air fresheners and people who give out full candy bars
on Halloween and beaches and sarcasm, cup-o-noodles and bikinis and
Harley-Davidson and Band-Aids, inside jokes and sunsets and
sunrises and music (except for contemporary country), down
comforters and old friends you stay in touch with and your clothes
being warm when they come out of the dryer, good books and good
movies and good nights spent awake talking to somebody until
it’s the morning and then you fall asleep on each other still
dressed in all your clothes from the day before and everybody who
walks by can’t help but look at the two of you and say,
“Aaaaaaawwwwww.”