A Thousand Thanks
In a nod to our distant relations celebrating Thanksgiving Day™ 'cross the pond, and the growing number doing so on this side of it, we offer a thousand thanks, in no inparticular order: I am thankful for the stretch and support of my police-issued BVD®s. I am thankful for the straight-faced resolve of the Queen’s Guard, rifles at the ready! I am thankful for the snarling cinema legacy of Mr. James Cagney, the tuneful pleasantries of Procol Harum and the good-humored heroics of Stalag 13's Colonel Robert E Hogan. I am thankful for the videotaped recordings of Quinn Martin's police procedurals that I keep under lock and key here at the station house. I am thankful that Beano® enzymatic supplements capably suppress the stumoch-churning gastro byproducts of my favorite seasonal foodstuffs, root beers and gelatins. I am thankful that a vast waterway separates me from the mud-spinnin', shit-kickin’ crackers in the American south, particularly Texas, Ohio and Florida — though I am partial to the later's squozen juices, which big-haired homo sapien hater Anita Bryant once claimed was as essential as sunshine — with the exception of New Orleans, whose Mardi Gras bead wearers I could get jiggy with. I am thankful for the only good thing to come out of Canada — Canadian bacon — and tolerant of the other — Justin Beaver — as my grandniece has become afflicted with his eponymous Fever. I am thankful that white-wigged balladeer Dennis DeYoung has light sensitivity that keeps him out of the spotlight and pray that fop-topped fatty Elton John Lewis will be nudged out of it as well. I am thankful for teachers who never laid an improper hand on me and the naughty neighbor lass who long-ago did. I am thankful to have known and loved relations now passed and those still among us, near and far, excepting my shamefully indecent sister-in-law Clara the Cosmetologist™, who is a bit too near, having stumbled in at all hours Monday eve for her annual visit and is presently heaving her drunken miseries into the side hedge. I am thankful for the sturdy roof over my head and the sleeping quarters separate from the rip-snorting, if dear, old bird who once shared my bed. I am thankful for rewarding Internet police work and respectful online citizenry who recognize it as such. I am thankful for the ribald brilliance and gap-toothed accoutrements — carnationed lapel, cigarette holder, the lot of it! — of Finchley's Terry-Thomas (pictured here). 'Tis a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World Wide Web and I am bloody thankful for it!
