Post Traumatic Turkey Syndrome

I trust everybody had a nice Thanksgiving. It’s a really warm and fuzzy holiday, isn’t it? Only in America can you sit down to a great dinner with friends and family professing your love for the world one day, and beat the shit out of the guy that took Wal-Mart’s last iPod Nano from your shopping cart the next.

Ah, the Holidays. It’s such a lovely time of year. From Thanksgiving to New Year’s Eve; five weeks in our lives where we just go off the freaking deep end. We start out the five weeks spending hundreds of dollars on turkey and ham dinners. Afterwards, we complain that we spent too much, we made too much, we ate too much, and if we eat one more goddamn leftover turkey sandwich during the week we’ll throw up all over our keyboards. Then, approximately four weeks later, we are ecstatic to do it all over again.

With every Thanksgiving feast across the country, there is always one guy (usually it’s Uncle Monty), who automatically becomes a chemical engineer and starts spewing the effects of tryptophane on the brain. But, what gives us Americans our 40-day dementia is not the tryptophane. It’s actually another little known chemical called triptothemall. This is when the trouble starts.

We will buy anything and everything for people we don’t even like. During the year we will drive around for an hour searching for gas that is a penny cheaper, or not biggie size the Wendy’s because the 49 freaking cents doesn’t fit into our budget, but we will charge our credit cards up to the max to give people expensive crap they will never, ever use. You see? Dementia. Can you tell me why the hell you bought Grandma “Grand Theft Auto?” She doesn’t even have a goddamn Playstation.

Our psychotic behavior continues when we go to get that beloved icon of Xmas, The Tree. Forty-seven weeks out of the year we support Greenpeace, spout our concerns over global warming, and preach to all about the effects of losing the rainforest. But once the post T-Day Delirium sets in, we go to the nearest woodlands and chop down the biggest freaking tree we see that will fit in our living room. Then, as if this craziness wasn’t enough, we will wrap this dead piece of wood and its drying leaves, with thousands of hot, little, electric lights and cords. And to top it off, where do we put this nice, pretty fire hazard? Next to the fucking fireplace. How’s that for idiocy?

So, the week after the tree fire, the gift tossing, and second expensive turkey-pooping feast, what do we do? We culminate the lunacy of this five-week festival with picking the last day of the year to get schnockered, shout epithets at Dick Clark, and make asses out of ourselves to the world. There is nothing like starting the year out with a giblet-induced upset stomach and the hangover from hell.

I don’t know about you, but this is my favorite time of year.

Happy Dementia,
~Larry

PS: A bit of advice - exchange Grandma’s Playstation game for a tennis racquet. She’ll love it. But, remind her not to jump the net. She could break a hip.