Operation: Denny's (by Chris Wiggins)

This is Chris Wiggins here.

Ted's not doing very well folks. He's currently in the hospital, over at Kaiser, recovering from... well... he got his ass kicked by an angry mob. He's still got his good eye and he's not got any permanent brain damage but it's going to be a few weeks before he can put any weight on his right leg. It's also a good thing that he's already past the age of caring whether or not he has kids cuz he got stomped in the jimmies pretty hard.

Right now I'm in a little internet cafe cuz Ted wanted me to give you all an update on what's been happening. There's been a long painful story down here in Fresno but since I'm not near the quality story teller that Ted is I'll leave all that stuff to Ted when he gets around to telling the story. Really, I just wanted to let everyone know what happened just the last Tuesday.

Everything really started on Super Bowl Sunday. Me and Ted and Jim Jenkins were all over at O'Brien's tavern watching the game. Ted had been drinking a bit more than normal since the lay off. Losing the gig driving the train at the park really put Ted in a bad place. Everyone's been helping everyone through the tough times. Jim's the only one that's workin' and we're all staying at his place until things start to turn around.

Anyway... Ted hasn't been updating his blog in a while because of financial and housing trouble. He lost his job, lost his apartment, had to sell off a lot of his stuff to to keep his head above water.

But back to the Super Bowl. We've all been struggling but we pooled some money together to have another get together at O'Brien's. Since I stopped drinking after that last seizure I had (at this very bar I might add) and Ted's been worried about his blood-pressure and not drinking as much it wasn't really an expensive evening.

Things were going pretty well - though we were disappointed we didn't get to see that porno they played in Arizona during the 4th quarter - but we did get to see the Ad for Denny's offering free grand slam breakfasts on Tuesday. Ted just about blew a blood vessel right then and there.

It didn't take him long before he'd told us about a plan he'd come up with for Tuesday - all three of us were going to get our free breakfasts. From 6am - 2pm on February 4th, we were going on a breakfast binge. Jim and me thought it was funny at first. We get used to this sort of stuff with Ted after a while. But this was different. Ted was super serious. He said we weren't just going to A Denny's we were going to EVERY Denny's in the greater Fresno Area.

The plan was to start early with the two Denny's downtown followed by the two just off the 99. Ted said we'd eat breakfast at the first one then for the others nibble at the plate a bit and get the rest of the breakfast to go. He thoughts we could do the first four by 9am. It was a dumb idea but times are tough and a couple of grand slams could make for some good leftovers. So, we went along with it.

Sure enough 8:45 and we'd managed to get in and out of the N Abby Street, M Street, S East Ave., and N Parkway Denny's; all in under three hours. We laughed at ourselves a bit for giving Ted a hard time and were about to head home with at least another days worth of food when Ted asked us where the fuck we were going. There were six other Denny's to hit before 2pm so we had to get moving.

Jim started to insist that Ted let it go - but Ted went crazy and started beating on Jim. Took his car keys and told me to get in. Ted shouted out the window asking if Jim was coming he just gave Ted the finger and we drove off.

First on the list was the Denny's on Clovis Ave. around Sunnyside. The lines were starting to get long but Ted played the blind and crippled old man angle and managed to get us bumped up the line. It pissed a few people off but we got a seat - munched a bit of the egg and bacon then asked to have it boxed up.Next we hit the Denny's on N Blackstone. It was maybe quarter past 10 (10:30 at the latest) when we pulled up. Ted was getting anxious and the line was wrapped around the parking lot. Even though it was long the line was moving fast and we only had to wait about 30 minutes before getting a couple of seats at the counter. The food came fast (as I'm pretty sure they have about 1000 of these things pre-made and sitting under a heat lamp) and with our customary 5 minutes of nibbling and pushing the food around we asked for a box.

It was getting close to 11:30 when we started for Dennys #6. Ted decided that we'd hit all the places on Shaw - starting down by West avenue, stopping at the Denny's on N 1st and hitting the last one down by the College just past the 168. We were about halfway to our next stop (somewhere around Shields and N West Ave) when I said to Ted that I didn't think we'd make it to all 10 Denny's before 2 o'clock. Ted snapped at me - said I didn't know what the fuck I was talking about.

The backseat was full of to-go boxes... full of eggs and toast and bacon and sausage... pancakes and syrup. At first the car had this nice warn breakfasty smell to it but now it was starting to smell a bit more like an abattoir. I said "c'mon Ted. We've got enough food man. Lets just go back and pick up Jim - go back to his place and unload this. We've got enough food for a good dinner tonight and breakfast in the morning." Ted started screaming at me about how no one followed through with things any more and in tough times like these quitters were doing to be the first to die.

When Ted gets in his moods we've all learned to just go with the flow and ride them out.

When we got to the Denny's the routine didn't change much - maybe he embellished a bad hip or played up the blindness but people felt bad for him and we managed to hustle our way through the long lines. We got in - got our food and took off. As we left the Denny's there by Fresno State Ted noticed that it was 1:45. The trip to the last Denny's over on Herndon is about 6 miles away and in good traffic with a bit of speed you can make it in 10 minutes. Ted wasn't happy. He started complaining about wetback waiters making $2.50 an hour not giving a shit that he had to wait 5 minutes for a crappy free breakfast. I didn't bother to mention to Ted that he hadn't tipped a single waiter or waitress at any of the restaurants we'd been to and the only money he spent was for a cup of coffee at each place. Which I thought was curious because I know that Ted is supposed to staying away from caffeine on account of his blood pressure. This might explain why things went so wrong at the Riverpoint Center.

I'm not sure how he managed it without running through or over any number of obstacles that we sped by along the way but Ted pulled into the parking lot of the Riverpoint Center with 5 minutes to spare. The most interesting thing about this Denny's was that there was only the slightest remnants of a line left. Ted didn't even think he'd need to use his gimpy old many routine - but better safe than sorry Ted thought and off he went to get us a better place in line. Ted shuffled up to the hostess and started with his blind and crippled routine but the hostess wasn't impressed. She explained that they were no longer seating anyone for the free breakfast and had just finished handing out rain checks for a free grand slam on another visit - but only to the people who had been in line before 2pm. Annoyed buy placated by the idea of simply having to wait until tomorrow to get another free breakfast he agreed and asked for the coupon.

Very politely the hostess informed him that it was 5 minutes past 2:00 and she was not able to give out any additional rain checks. The noise that came out Ted's mouth made my blood run cold "ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME?!" he jabbed his finger at his watch and screamed "IT'S 1:58pm. - I'VE GOT TWO MINUTES LEFT SO YOU'D BETTER GIVE ME MY GOD-DAMNED COUPON!"

The hostess was backing up toward the door as she started to say "I'm sorry sir we..."

that's when Ted really lost it. He lunged at her and tackled her to the ground tearing off her apron and uniform screaming:

"WHERE'S THE FUCKING RAIN CHECK?"

WHERE'S THE FUCKING RAIN CHECK YOU STUPID BITCH?"

"OH MY GOD I CAN'T BELIEVE THIS!"

"I JUST WANT MY FREE BREAKFAST!"

The patrons inside the Denny's had heard the commotion - as did the few remaining people that were waiting in line outside. At some point in the melee Ted threw Jim's car keys at someone and out of sheer luck they landed not but a few feet away from me. Not wanting to have any part of what was already a very disturbing situation I snuck over to Jim's car and took off. I don't think Ted even noticed. If he did he hasn't mentioned anything about it.

I drove back to Jim's house - who had just got a call from the Sheriff's department telling him that Ted was being taken to the ER at Kaiser. Figureing that TEd was in pretty good hands at this poring we unloaded the remains of 19 grand slam breakfasts. It's was a pretty good haul, considering:

35 pancackes

31 Sausage links

29 strips of bacon

33 Eggs (20 scrambled / 13 over easy) We told Ted not to get the eggs over easy becasue over easy eggs don't travel very well - but he never listens.

We got anassortment of toast but better than that we got some great condiments:

about 90 single serving containers of jelly

125 coffee creamers

a large collection of sugar, sweet-n-low, equal and splenda

4 bottles of Tabasco sauce

2 full bottles of ketchup

and stainless steel knives forks and spoons to serve 4

In hindsight Ted had a really good idea. But like a lot of Ted's really good ideas they aren't thought through very well. I mean Jim and I have all of this food - which by rights half of it is Ted's. But his jaw's going to be wired shut for another 3 weeks and this food won't keep that long so it's pretty obvious that Jim and I aren't going to let it go to waste.

Even so... Ted's got a room and all the food that he can eat (well suck through a straw anyway) he's got some great pain killers and on demand television. I think Jim and I need to see about getting our own rooms at Kaiser - at least until the economy picks up.

Revelations

I’ve never been a religious man. However, for the last few months, me and my buddy Chris Wiggins have been going to this sit down group to help Chris deal with his drinking problem. It’s not Alcoholics Anonymous or anything like that; it’s just a few of us going down to O’Brien’s Tavern, enjoying some of the old sour mash, and making sure that Chris doesn’t have any problems getting home.

By now, I’m sure you’re asking what any of this has to do with religion. If you aren’t then you haven’t been paying attention. You see, Chris has some issues with people (and coming from yours truly that means quite a bit). Chris is always on some tear about how stupid people are and how he wanted to kill all the stupid people in Fresno. His basic plan was just to kill everyone in Fresno and write off the small number of smart people deaths as acceptable losses. I keep telling him that if there were no stupid people then he and I wouldn’t have jobs, and that’s kept him pretty content… until last week.

So, last Wednesday, Chris and I are knocking back a few of Kentucky’s finest when Chris gets this look on his face – a look like he was possessed or something – like out of one of those Linda Blair movies. All of a sudden, he looks at me all serious and said that he knew why there were stupid people in the world. Of course, I couldn’t resist so I said to Chris “Oh yeah? You’ve been bitching about stupid people since we met, so why now? How is this minute any different than the last one? How come you didn’t have this big answer before we walked in the door of the bar?” Now, Chris is still staring at me then says ‘Because God just told me.’ I figure this has to be one of those alcoholic “moments of clarity”, I just wasn’t sure if it was his or mine. So, I figure I’ll be a sport and play along. So I say “Go on Chris, what did God tell you?”

‘He says it’s his plan. Stupid people are all part of God’s great plan, Ted.’

I was somewhat awe-struck by this and asked him to elaborate. He explained that God had allocated a finite number of IQ points to the universe and that as the population of the planet increased the average intelligence of the average person would decrease. That, he added, is why most of Earth’s most brilliant minds are not contemporary. He continued, saying that it is only when people die that their allotted IQ points return to the universal collective, where they would be redistributed. God’s plan, according to Chris, had intended that it was only through negative population growth or global catastrophe that the average intelligence of the masses would ever increase.

By this point in the conversation, I was seriously contemplating a career change to something on the scale of Genocidal Dictator of the new Police State of California, but that was going to take a bit more effort than I could muster and Chris wasn’t finished explaining God’s plan.

However, I had to interrupt him. Not that I wanted to add anything to the conversation but my glass was empty. I wasted no time in flagging down the waitress to order another bourbon. As the heart-shaped ass of our waitress shimmied back to the bar I asked Chris, “So, if this is God’s plan why wouldn’t Adam and Eve, being the first people to ever exist, be über geniuses?”

Without missing a beat, Chris had an answer already prepared. Chris explained that initially God had not needed intelligence as he believed that his guidance and the free will of human beings would be enough. Unfortunately, God had underestimated the power of free will and the complete and total ignorance inherent in the human species and had only decided to institute intelligence as a last resort.

Ultimately it breaks down like this: God got fed up with having to repeat itself to humanity every time it needed to remind humans on how to behave, what to do, what not to do, who to fuck or who or what not to fuck and that sort of thing. After much contemplation God was sick and tired of repeating itself to humanity and decided to start writing everything down. Of course, after creating the world and all that God had become rather lazy so it was resolved that humanity would have to transcribe God’s laws themselves. This was the impetus behind the granting of intelligence to human beings. Somewhat anecdotally Chris added that Moses spent mot of his time on Mount Sinai trying to forge the signature of the Almighty.

This, the granting of intelligence, Chris said was a huge mistake and quite honestly, the beginning of the end for God. Intelligence became problematic when the really smart people exercised their free will and began worshiping all sorts of different things, calling it God and using their newly discovered intelligence to convince the masses that this was the true meaning God had set forth for them. Once this ideology was firmly in place people wrote God off entirely. Still, some people just couldn’t get with the program and wanted things to be the way they were; so they started writing their own books about what they thought God was all about.

By this time God was pretty well pissed-off and decided that it was time to get hardcore. This is when God runs the big Jesus scam on everyone and starts interfering with the natural order of things. Then people start running around talking about these books that a bunch of whacked out drug addict morons were writing. There was preaching and prognosticating and many crowds gathered to hear about these books and scriptures. They gathered like junkies at a methadone clinic; absorbing as much of that bullshit as they could. Now people are scared shitless of the Old Gods and live in fear of some mystical second coming of this Jesus asshole; which we’re still suffering from today.

There have been many cultures that have tried to pull us away from all this craziness but the population was expanding so rapidly at the time there just wasn’t enough intelligence left to go around, so here we are.

After finishing his tirade Chris took a couple of really deep breaths and began to blink rapidly for a few seconds before falling out of his chair. I casually left enough cash on the table to cover my portion of the bill and slipped out the door. I don’t know if God really spoke to Chris; but even if he had, the only convincing argument that Chris (or God) made to me was that Chris probably should be going to Alcoholics Anonymous meetings, assuming, of course, he survived that seizure.

Westward Ho !!!

I know you haven't heard from me in a while but there's a very good reason for my extended absence.

The short version is that things went south in Omaha. The job finally got to me. I had a bit of a breakdown in the office one afternoon and after a couple of months in rehab I spent some time contemplating retirement. Unfortunately, with the current state of Social Security I'll be fucked in the ass, financially, if I don't keep working until age 90. So, I did a bit of soul searching and picked up some contract work through a temp agency.

The agency sent me all around the country helping small businesses sort out their accounting and financial issues. I spent a good eight months living out of hotel rooms and suitcases. After the Tomaine poisioning incident at the Waffle House in Rolla, Missouri and the Angina Attack at the Ramada Inn in Ocean City, Maryland I decided that I'd had enough. The cross-continental flights and the jet lag were finally wearing the old man down. It was finally time for Ted Killgore to move on.

I was at a DoubleTree Hotel in Oklahoma City when I'd first had the thought about going into the Wal-Mart and laying down my last paycheck on a pistol and shuffling myself off this mortal coil. Don't misunderstand, it wasn't just being in Okie City that made me suicidal but the whole direction my life was going at this point. With suicide on my mind, I went to the hotel bar and threw back a few shots of bravery; convinced that I would indeed put a bullet in my brain.

After the 5th shot of Tequila I get a call from my lawyer, back in Omaha, telling me that my whore of an ex-wife has re-married and I was free from the shackles of Alimony. I was so exicted I did a strip tease right there in the bar. After spending my mandatory 48 hours in the county drunk tank I drove my rental car straight back to Omaha. When I got home I called the Real Estate agent and immediately put my house on the market. I decided that if I was going to start a new life for meself I needed to sell off all this shit I'd been hanging on to and had the biggest yard sale since the Apache, Oklahoma Rattlesnake Festival. After the house sold I packed up my clothes and a few other sundries that I'd decided to keed and did what Horace Greeley told me to to - Go West. While Horace picked the direction, I picked the destination - sunny California.

Now I'm getting settled into my new condo and adjusting to life out here in Fresno. I've got a new job driving the mock-steam train at the Roeding Park Playland and I pick up some extra cash around the Holidays playing Santa Claus at the Fashion Fair Mall.

Finally, 'ol Ted's getting a taste of the good life.

When Education Fails

Capitalism will be there to help - at the expense of the taxpayer.

I'm sure that this isn't unique to Omaha and Douglas County. I know that just about every city and school district in America experiences the horror that is door-to-door fund raising. You know the routine - it's springtime and the streets are literally teeming with hordes of children selling overpriced candy and two year old magazine subscriptions, straight from publisher's clearing house back catalog.

In some ways I prefer the occasional Mormon or Jehovah's Witness. At least the Bible Thumpers are adults and you can tell them to go fuck a baboon when they show up at your doorstep. While not impossible, it is much harder to do that to a nine year old, and the last thing anyone needs is some irate parent threatening to firebomb your house because you called their precious little Suzie a cuntrag. But I digress.

I suppose that more disturbing to me than the actual fund-raising itself is the state of affairs our educational system is in that necessitates the need for this sort of capitalist nightmare.

Stay with me on this.

So, I pay taxes, a portion of which is supposed to be used to fund public the public school system. Unfortunately, because my political representatives are such scumbag cocksuckers they have bankrupt the system (both morally and financially) to the point where they are sending our children out to sell us something that was donated by a multi-million dollar corporation (usually accompanied by a nice kick-back to the school district or its administrators) in order to make up for the failings of the government to manage our money.

What they're saying is we can't raise taxes because if we do that we won't get re-elected to our ineffectual legislative gravy train so we'll just figure out some other way to make you... me... the American Taxpayer pony up for my new BMW...

I mean for a better educational system.

No child left behind right?

Kids These Days

Kids these days are fucking stupid.

Yep, you heard right -- Ted Killgore's just another bitter old man who's convinced that anyone aged 10 - 25 are morons; and before you tell me how out of step with the times and how kids today are actually, on average, more intelligent than their counterparts from just 20 years ago I'd like to draw your attention to an event in the local news that only serves to reinforce my position.

You have to understand that Nebraska's economy isn't in the best of shape these days and it appears that the Douglas County School System is suffering a bit more than other agencies and organizations as a result. With budget cut-backs and decreased government spending the Douglas County High Schools are having to discontinue their after school athletic and music programs and stop funding on the school libraries.

Since I don't have kids in school I really don't give two shits if Omaha South does or doesn't have a football team or marching band this year; although I must admit that I will miss the Varsity Girls Volleyball Team, but that's another story. Still, I DO understand that the students are as pissed off about the girls volleyball (and other activities) and want to speak out about it.

Now, if these kids were as intelligent as some want me to believe they would convince their parents to flood the district superintendent with calls and letters and emails demanding that they not cut school funding. The more adventurous and politically minded of these teenage geniuses might even go so far as to stage on campus protests to assert their displeasure with the situation -- which, as it happens, is what they did -- but not quite in the way you'd expect.

The students from a number of High Schools in Douglas County decided to stage a mass walk out today, which in-and-of-itself wouldn't be so bad, but during this walk out these future captains of industry decided to set fire to cars, destroy public property and loot the Crystal Beverage Mart over on South 20th.

Great.

So these illustrious MENSA Members, in an attempt to get the state to give back the 7 million dollars to the school budgets, cost the city 10 million dollars in damages that the city is going to have to get from the state in order to make repairs.

I figure the state could easily get by with cutting the high school math programs to make up the additional 3 million, since we've got proof that the little fuckers aren't learning anything in those classes anyway.

GO BIG RED!

Missing Time

It's not bad enough that I have to be up before the chickens. If it was just that I could probably cope. Christ, if you didn't know me you'd think that I was some kind of farmer -- but that's a different sort of smell entirely.

No, I'm just your average, unambitious, good-for-nothing corporate whore -- but I still have to get up at 4:00am everyday. What a sick, sad life I live. But I'll tell you more about that some other time.

Today's story is something more akin to a segment you would have seen on Leonard Nimoy's "In Search Of" or even more recently that Unsolved Mysteries show with what's-his-name, you know the guy who played Eliot Ness on the Untouchables.

Anyway...

Like any other day my alarm clock goes off and it takes me a few minutes to realize what's going on before I hit the snooze button and finally stumble out of bed, except something felt different today and didn't quite understand why; at least I didn't understand until I finally heard the alarm go off.

When I finally opened my eyes enough to see the burning red digits of the clock, that sits menacingly on my bedside table I noticed that it was 5:21am.

Shit !

I was going to be late. Very late.

In a frenzy of panic and unconsciousness I grabbed whatever clothes I could find, got dressed and dashed out of the house in hopes of minimizing my tardiness. Fortunately for me, if I make it in early enough I'm the only one there and no one would be the wiser.

On the road I make my usual stop at the 7-11 for my morning wake me up. You know what I mean, the coffee that's got the sting of the 48 hour blend; the kind of coffee that can burn a hole right through the formica. In my frenzied but rather soporific state I mistakenly poured and purchased a Raspberry Vanilla flavored coffee and nearly ran myself off the road after the first sip.

I cannot express in words the vile construct that is the flavored coffee. I wish a pox on the houses of those who invented it and will not be satisfied until we return to the Holy Trinity of coffee !!

Like the Father, Son and Holy Spirit it should always be:

Coffee, Coffee Regular and Coffee Sweet (That's Black, Black + 2 sugars and Black with 2 cream and 2 sugars for all you blasphemous sons-a-bitches out there)

Trying to ignore the raspberry-vanilla death taste in my mouth I switch on my regular AM radio companion, but I don't hear the ever familiar news anchors giving me the ever depressing state of the nation and traffic situation here in Omaha. No. Something was wrong. I glance at the clock on the dashboard. It's dimly lit and hard to read, which is why I didn't notice it at first, but as I focused on the little LCD display I saw that it was actually 4:20am

4:20am?? That can't be right! The cheap-ass little clock I bought at the Walgreen's must have a dead battery or something.

No. Bottom of the hour station identification and time mark tells me the truth. It was indeed 4:20 (now 4:30) am.

I don't have to be to work until 6:00am

I desperately wanted my two hours back but they had been lost forever. I have no explanation for why my alarm went off at 5:21am and can only suspect that I had been adducted by a group of rather inept aliens. Perhaps they were new? Maybe this was their first big abduction or maybe it's some other alien species trying to get in on the whole abduction craze. Maybe it's some kind of inter-stellar scavenger hunt and I got a visit from the last place team. I really don't have a clue.

I am going to set up a camera or something tonight, just in case they come back. I figure if they were stupid enough to botch the missing time thing then they might not notice, or even know, what a camera is -- and that my friends could be ol' Ted Killgore's ticket out of this middle-management hell.

Of course, I'm not going to be able to take my Vicodin and Ativan like I did last night; because if those alien bastards do come back the last thing I need is to be all drugged up and confused. That however, is a story for another time.

This story ends in the most anti-climactic way you can imagine. I decided, early as it was to make my way to the office. The worst that could happen is I would have an hour (maybe) to catch up on some work without being interrupted. Halfway to the office I realized that the familiar radio personalities didn't sound quite so familiar. Initially I figured that was just a symptom of being up to early and not a regular listener to talk radio at this hour. However, as the station broke for the news (just as I pulled into the office parking lot no less) the news anchor started his report with the top stories for SATURDAY...

FUCKING SATURDAY?

I decided it was in my best interest to feign some heart palpitations so I could get a few hours of sleep in the Emergency Room rather than make the drive home right away. A few small annoyances aside, I was quite happy with my medically supervised nap.

Thanks for Nothing

I HATE Thanksgiving!

Why, you ask?

Because I hate my family; not only that but I hate gatherings as well. I especially hate family gatherings, so you can see that Thanksgiving in general is a train wreck waiting to happen. Christmas is just as bad,and oftentimes worse, but that's not what I'm going to talk about here.

No. I'm talking about Thanksgiving.

This Thanksgiving in particular has been the proverbial straw that broke this camel's back. As of today I will never spend another national or religious holiday with more than one member of my immediate family. Extended family can kiss my ass, as they're all just a bunch of psychotic leeches and I want nothing to do with any of them regardless of whether it's a holiday or not. Maybe I'm just a bitter old man, but that's one of the perks of being an old man I'm entitled to be bitter, and jaded, and angry and pretty much anything else I want to be. Now you're probably asking why am I so vehement about my feelings toward my family. Well, let me tell you. It all started with a ham. Yes. That's right. A HAM!

Well okay, it didn't start with a ham but there is a ham involved.

I had this thought that I would be magnanimous this year and cook thanksgiving dinner for the family. Invite the immediate and some extended relatives over and have a nice meal and a leisurely afternoon with some wine and football. I made the obligatory phone calls and let everyone know what I was planning and said get back to me if you were going to come. The Monday before Thanksgiving I havent' heard anything from anyone so I start calling again just to confirm that everyone is coming. As it turns out my brother decides since he doesn't want to come to my house for dinner he would cook at his place and invite everyone, assuming that I'd be so pissed off that I wouldn't show up. Having done that, the rest of the family wasn't sure who was doing what so they didn't respond to anyone.

Now just to show my brother that I wasn't going to let him get away with his bullshit antics I showed up for thanksgiving dinner; even though almost no one else did. In the end the only people who showed up for this 'feast' (which consisted of the most horrifying food I've ever eaten in my life) was me, my brother, his wife, their son and his wife's mother.

This is where the ham comes in.

I need to tell you that my brother is on the Atkin's Diet and eats nothing but meat and fat. You'd think then that I traditional turkey would be the main course of thanksgiving but no -- it wasn't; it was a ham. It was the greasiest, saltiest bastard brine of a ham I've ever eaten. On top of that there were no potatoes, no bread or rolls, no cranberry sauce. There was a ham, pork gravy, corn, butter, salad with the nastiest mayonnaise dressing ever created and grey broccoli. I could feel my cholesterol levels going up exponentially just looking at that food. I hope Robert Atkins has a stroke and dies. At the very least I hope he has some sort of horrible kidney failure from all the excess nitrogen in his system after digesting all that damned fat and protein.**

You'd think that something like this would be easy, simple and relatively stress free. If you thought that you're wrong; at least you are if you're thinking about my family.

So, that's it. I'm done. My family can go to hell and take their repugnant oleaginous pigs ass with them.

Next year I'm just going to get drunk in a cornfield... by myself.

**FOOTNOTE: According to reports Dr. Atkins died in April 2003 at 72 years old, nine days after sustaining a head injury caused by slipping on ice.

(If I was his son I'd have pushed him down on the ice too. Think about it, if Atkins WAS dying of kidney failure or some other health problem that's not going to do too well for his book sales and his son, the sole heir of his estate, would be left with jack shit. Yeah I'd had probably made it look like an accident too.)