![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Someone wished me "a safe and happy Thanksgiving", yesterday at work.
Let me take this opportunity to put my foot down, because the 'safe and happy' disclaimer is creeping into our vocabulary fast, and it's gone damned far enough.
I first heard it in connection with Halloween. Which is a buzzkill, but it's fair game, I suppose. It's dark out, the teenagers are all drunk, and the kids are wandering around busy neighborhoods in cumbersome costumes, asking strangers for candy. Have a safe one? Sure thing, Mom. I noticed it later with St. Patrick's day. It seemed out of place, there, but it is kind of the Indianapolis 500 of drunk driving, so what the hell. Then July 4th, on account of the booze, explosives and propane grills, so I kept my mouth shut then, too.
But come on, guys. Thanksgiving? Thanksgiving is an American holiday that we observe by eating a big dinner and watching a football game, mostly within the confines of a relative's living room. If these are high-risk activities, you're doing it wrong.
Let's assume the worst: At the grocery store in the morning, I have to fight some married guy to the death over the last roll of aluminum foil. Back home, I manage to chop off seven fingers making mashed potatoes, burn the apartment down and unleash a mutant e. coli pandemic with the cranberry sauce. Failure to bear-bag leftovers attracts rabid wildlife from the surrounding hills. Then the irresistible smell of pie from the neighbors' window drives me into a territorial frenzy that ends in a blockwide orgy of murder by butterknife and improvised sterno boobytraps, leaving hundreds orphaned and homeless.
H.R. guy at work? Local newscaster? Billboard on the drive home? I would not accuse any of you of failing to warn me of the dangers. That's all I'm trying to say.
And we'd still be sick of leftovers by next week. Am I right? Right? Leftovers? Heh?
Forget it. Happy Thanksgiving, guys. See you in the burn ward.
C
Let me take this opportunity to put my foot down, because the 'safe and happy' disclaimer is creeping into our vocabulary fast, and it's gone damned far enough.
I first heard it in connection with Halloween. Which is a buzzkill, but it's fair game, I suppose. It's dark out, the teenagers are all drunk, and the kids are wandering around busy neighborhoods in cumbersome costumes, asking strangers for candy. Have a safe one? Sure thing, Mom. I noticed it later with St. Patrick's day. It seemed out of place, there, but it is kind of the Indianapolis 500 of drunk driving, so what the hell. Then July 4th, on account of the booze, explosives and propane grills, so I kept my mouth shut then, too.
But come on, guys. Thanksgiving? Thanksgiving is an American holiday that we observe by eating a big dinner and watching a football game, mostly within the confines of a relative's living room. If these are high-risk activities, you're doing it wrong.
Let's assume the worst: At the grocery store in the morning, I have to fight some married guy to the death over the last roll of aluminum foil. Back home, I manage to chop off seven fingers making mashed potatoes, burn the apartment down and unleash a mutant e. coli pandemic with the cranberry sauce. Failure to bear-bag leftovers attracts rabid wildlife from the surrounding hills. Then the irresistible smell of pie from the neighbors' window drives me into a territorial frenzy that ends in a blockwide orgy of murder by butterknife and improvised sterno boobytraps, leaving hundreds orphaned and homeless.
H.R. guy at work? Local newscaster? Billboard on the drive home? I would not accuse any of you of failing to warn me of the dangers. That's all I'm trying to say.
And we'd still be sick of leftovers by next week. Am I right? Right? Leftovers? Heh?
Forget it. Happy Thanksgiving, guys. See you in the burn ward.
C