Your Unemployed Daughter

photo credit: Nick Bastian Tempe, AZ

The word “thankful” tends to stick in my craw a little bit, maybe because I grew up in the South and people used to bandy it about as often as “God bless,” “Bless her heart,” and “Isn’t that sweet!” in tones that meant, frequently, the very opposite of what Mr. Webster originally intended.

It’s the word more than the sentiment, though, that bugs me. Because I really am thankful for stuff. I am! I just don’t post it on Facebook a lot, or tell anyone except my stuffed animals.

Well, since tomorrow is the great Day o’ Thanks and all, I figured maybe I should make an exception. So here are a few things YUD is truly, truly, tru-lilly (no sarcasm here) THANKFUL FOR:

1. I am not a turkey. Never have been, never want to be. Because according to this PETA commercial (a real downer, btw) turkeys have it worse than the unemployed. No one has ever tried to burn my feathers off, not even that one publisher who I know would have attempted it had she even an ounce of creativity in her turkey-sized brain. (Oooh, forgive me—that’s just mean to turkeys!)

I have to say, that little girl sounds like a prime candidate for a defeathering of her own. But I’ll be charitable: I’m sure she was just paid to act that way.

2. I have no arduous flight travel scheduled for this holiday, since my parents off and left us to fend for ourselves and went on an adventure excursion to New Zealand. Which is cool, because I love the relaxed sensation of not having to visit the Jetblue terminal until December this year. Plus, I’m not even going to Penn Station until 12 pm-ish tomorrow. Which should be an adventure of its own.

3. Someone just quoted me a pretty awesome hourly rate, and while I don’t know if I’ll get the job, I’ve had a lot of fun adding up my potential earnings in my head already. Not that I’m mercenary or anything.

4. The fascinating organic hemp truffles I will be bringing to lovely bro and sis-in-law’s to be tomorrow (hope you guys aren’t reading this! If you are, by “hemp” I mean “air mattress”).

5. It’s been more than 6 months since my layoff at TK mag., and gosh darn it if I’m not happier, less stressed, and better defined abdominally than ever. Which just goes to show: Things happen for a reason. There’s light at the end of the tunnel. Every rose has its thorn, just like every turkey has its day, just like Bret Michaels really should have accepted that coffee money from me the time we met in the office but now it’s too late, Bret … I’ve moved on.

And that, by God, is something to be thankful for.

Happy TG, y’all!