Thanks for the inevitable laundry list of self-indulgent holiday editorials. Every year at this time, some schmuck writers go off and pen long, self-righteous opinion pieces relaying all of the things they’re thankful for. We hate to say it, but … well, this is that very opinion piece and we are those schmucks. But, hey, it’s a Thanksgiving thing. It just must be done.
No thanks for the end-of-semester headaches that await us all when we come down off our turkey high. We don’t know about the rest of our peers, but the age-old struggle to the finish line is poised to wreak havoc on our lives once again, and we know we can’t be alone. With final exams, final essays and final projects on the way, it seems as though the final gasp of oxygen for a few weeks is on the way, too. Overall, we’re just bracing for that depressing penultimate moment when our academics catch up with us and hit us where it hurts — our GPA.
Thanks for Thanksgiving’s existence. Serving as a much-needed mental break, a time to make amends with our growling home-cooked meal-craving stomachs and apparently as a welcome mat for beautiful weather, it’s as easy as pumpkin pie to love the holiday. But lest we forget, it’s also a time of great historical significance. Not only does it commemorate our country’s settling roots and the bridging — nay, temporary bridging — of a monumental gap between two races, it also established the American way for healing wounds: grand dinners. Of course, any Joe Six-pack knows that the first Thanksgiving dinner was where the Pilgrims said, “Hey, thanks for the corn,” the Native Americans said, “Hey, thanks for the turkey,” and the turkey said, “Hey, thanks a lot, jerks.”
No thanks for fans at last Saturday’s UA football game in Tucson. Their student section’s card stunt, in which they coordinated the flipping of colored cards on cue in order to spell out “Go ’Cat's", went haywire when they spelled their mascot name to say “ctas.” This didn’t raise our eyebrows too much though. You see, we already knew that they couldn’t spell such simple words as “Rose” or “Bowl,” so this wasn’t much of a surprise. So why the “no thanks?” Obvious; they exceeded our expectations by being able to correctly spell “U,” “of,” “A” and “Go.” Now, we Sun Devils — S-U-N D-E-V-I-L-S — are going to have to swallow our pride and admit that our bitter rivals might just know how to spell at least a little bit. Oh, those mangy “ctas.”
Thanks for Microsoft Word’s word count feature. It’s about the only thing that can keep us from prattling on about our thanksgivings and misgivings by reigning in our “Thanks & No Thanks” list for good. And for that, we should all be thankful.
