Almost time to give thanks

With all that is going on in the world and the holidays right around the corner, I thought maybe I would start the preparation for being thankful.

Just like a professional baseball player has to go to spring training before the season, and just like a soldier must go through boot camp before serving, all of us must take the proper preparations before we celebrate all we are thankful for. I mean, serious injuries can occur if we start the season without stretching or watching the game tape of last season’s highs and lows. So let’s begin the season with a quick list of what we might be thankful for. You know, for reference purposes.

It would be hard to think about thankfulness in the past year without bringing up politics. Yep, politics. I mean, what would we even be talking about around the office water cooler without the donkeys and the elephants doing absolutely nothing. A lot of talking and arguing and spending money to get elected to do more talking and arguing and still do nothing.

What if we did that? Went to work, complained about what our coworkers were doing wrong and then when the time came for us to do something, we just did the same thing we always do. That being more arguing and spending while nothing gets done. Or we could just make a website that operates the same way we do.

OK, what am I getting at? We are thankful that our bosses expect production. We are also thankful that we have a job when there seems to be a lot still out there who do not have one. For those of you who don’t have a job right now, be thankful that you don’t have to go to the water cooler to hear about Kim Kardashian and her men problems.

Next. We are thankful for Coulee Cops in this very paper. I mean, where else can we practice our CSI skills and try and figure out “Who did that?” and “I wonder who that was?” Some of us would never know what our family was up to if it not for the police blotter. Some of us have become super sleuths by taking this little paragraph and doing an elimination of suspects town by town. OK, some of us are just thankful to have a laugh or two.

We can’t forget to put the NFL on our giving thanks list. They literally put our fantasy leagues on notice when they started suspending our point makers. For years, the most highly touted players were the ones who were always in trouble or were controversial. All of a sudden, big names were getting paid to stay home and fantasy owners all over the place had to scramble to pick up some guy named Matt “I can’t pronounce his last name” and other players that have been weekly pickups and weekly drops.

We should be thankful for the cold weather that has socked us in all of a sudden and seems to be here to stay. I mean, we went from sweating to shivering over night, it seems. The leaves did not even have time to get jumped in by kids before they were frozen to the ground. I actually saw a kid make a leafy frost man. As a matter of fact, why was that kid outside, shouldn’t he be inside playing Minecraft or something? Better be thankful that kid did not hurt himself outside.

Well, I am sure I have forgotten some things to be thankful for, but honestly this is just a rough draft. We have a few days to work out the kinks while we clean the house and search for new recipes and make travel plans.

Or, we could be thankful all year long. Hmm, novel idea. I’m just saying.