Thanksgiving Prayer

Thanksgiving is one of the only, truly noble holidays. We gather together for a feast and give thanks for everything that we have done and experienced over the past year, we remember good times, and bad, we meet with friends and family, and we remember those who have passed on over the past year. Thanksgiving is also the day that marks our nations last day of collective sanity before the start of the hectic holiday madness, and so I cherish the holiday, a time where the focus is not on the presents, or a type of candy, or a tree, or drinking ( a lot), the focus is on family and friends, and a big damn bird 

                This thanksgiving was an odd one for me, I found myself four thousand miles away from the home I have know my entire life, away from the anchors of sanity that I have so truly cherished through the years, for the first time in my life I found myself standing alone in the security line of Ted Stevens International Airport, staring at a gauntlet of underpaid TSA agents just waiting for you to do something diabolically evil just to break the monotony that comes from working the graveyard shift. Behind me, my parents are standing together, urging me to walk closer to the security checkpoint, much like a parent would coax a younger child to take its first steps, my parents encouraged me to take my real first steps towards getting me the hell away from them so they can enjoy their holiday alone. 

                I walk up to the TSA Agent and hand them my ID and boarding pass, she looks it over and makes some marks on it with a five cent pen from Office Depot, clearly the first line of defense against the evil doers, for what criminal mastermind can negotiate their way around the swift ball point pen of justice. The next stop is where I remove my shoes, slip-ons, specifically packed for the trip ahead. Know the deal, my belt has been off for 15 minutes, all change has either been used of stowed outside my jeans. All jewelry is already removed. My belongings only take up two of the Fisher Price airport bins of justice that go through the X-ray machine, I am up to the scanner within thirty-seconds, a new record for me, I look around, but alas, I am the only person in the security line today. A shame really, I have always taken pride in my airport finesse. This isn’t my first rodeo; I know how to ride this bull. 

                As any good bull rider will tell you, incidentally, it does not matter how many times you ride the bull, there is always the risk of getting gored. As I put my arms down after the new scanners swish past me, a beeping sound comes from the terminal. I am walked over to a little machine and my hands are swabbed. At the point I am laughing and joking with airport security, as I tend to do. My first rule is this, always, always, always, talk to strangers. I have three rules, that’s number one. 

                The machine turns red and begins flashing an alert, I look back to my parents, now on the other side of the security checkpoint as me, they seem less upset that I have been deemed a terrorist by a fax machine, and more upset that I am still here, keeping them from leaving. 

                “What’s the warning on the machine say?” I ask, calmly, if I seem panicked, they will assume that I think my cover is blown, If I am too calm, they might think that this is all part of some sinister plan to strike at the heart of American safety, for if not the TSA, who will keep us safe from the evil-doers? 

                “Sir, your hands have tested positive for high explosives.”

                Well shit.

                I am escorted into a small room where I must stand with my legs apart. It’s very quiet in this room; the agents in there are searching through my bag. This gives me time to think. I wonder about my new life as a terrorist, what are the meals like in secret prisons? Does Gitmo offer dental? What do I have to do to prove I am the top dog of my cell block, because I highly doubt that my ability to chug half an MGD before getting sick will impress the men of cell block C. 

                I am released from my temporary custody, turns out it was a false alarm caused by the chemicals used in the hand soap that they have in the airport. It would seem like that would be a very simple problem to remedy, simply changing the hand soap from the brand they have now, which I have oh-so-cleverly named bomb-a-boom hand soap, and replace it with something less terrorist-y, like Irish Spring. On second thought, Irish Spring could be connected to the IRA, who knows, I have seen Fight Club enough times to never trust any soap bar, or people named Tyler, which makes Christmas time with my cousin Tyler very awkward.

                The flight is uneventful; I watch My Little Pony reruns most of the way down to my destination. You might ask yourself why a guy might watch My Little Pony, the answer is the same reason anyone watches anything on TV, it’s a pleasant distraction from the constant news of murder, war, political unease, international tension, and unbridled horror of the world around us. Plus the characters are cute and the songs are catchy, I dare you to listen to the song the ponies sing about cleaning up after winter and not hum the melody for the next week. 

                Upon my arrival I see my Grandfather, Grandma is nowhere to be seen, which is not good. I am sure she is fine, but her absence posses another issue. I have never really had a conversation with Grandpa Simon, it might sound tragic, but he has never been one for conversation, even when on the phone the man seldom speaks. Grandma is always the one to talk too; she is like me in that we both have a tendency towards rambling. 

                 We arrive at my Grandparents house, a nice little three bedroom two bathroom ranch house, the trees and lawn are all green, and the lake is blue like the sky. The siding on the house is brick, as are all the houses in this Northern-Florida neighborhood. We walk inside with the food we had grabbed along our, mostly silent, trip to the house, and place it down on the table. Grandma gives me a big hug and tells me how much she missed me. We sit down, and I prepare to eat.

                “Oh wait, Mark Lee?”

                She is the only person I know who calls me Mark Lee, I like that name, it makes me sound important.

                “Yeah Grandma?”

                “Would you say the blessing for us?”

                At this moment, sheer terror sets in. I have not said a blessing at a dinner table since I was six. Back when my family was pretending to still hold onto our Christian values, we rarely said grace, and after my mom became an Atheist, my dad and Brother Agnostic, and I an Agnostic Atheist, we have had little standing between us and food. The only pre-meal prayer that I can remember is the Jaws Prayer.

                If you are unfamiliar with the Jaws Prayer, allow me to attempt to inform you. Imagine the theme to Jaws, now every time the music plays, say another verse.

                “God is…Good and…God is… Great and… Thank you. For. This. Blessing.AhhhhhhhMEN!”

                The Amen is where you take your hands, that you have, instead of clasping in prayer, have clasped to resemble a shark fin, which at eight years old, I believed there was a difference, and you take your hands and make the motion of a great white shark opening its mighty rows of teeth and presumably biting into the body of that kid who dies near the beginning of “Jaws”, and if that fountain of blood is what every Christian is thinking about before their meal it explains why they are all so slim.

                Fortunately for me, and my Southern Baptist grandmother, I did happen to remember parts of a prayer that I had once heard. We bowed our heads, they closed their eyes, I couldn’t because I have never been found of closing my eyes while not tired, and I began to stumble through a prayer.

                “…uhm…God, thank you for this food that we are about to eat…uhm…bless it to our bodies and our bodies to your service… uh…in your name…Gloria in excelsious deo…uhm…tibiamo domine… ahem?”

                I don’t think saying grace is meant to be a question, but oh well. We begin to eat our Ruby Tuesday stakes, and as we are feasting on our charbroiled gift from on-high, my grandmother proposes something quite frightening.

                “Mark Lee, you should say grace at Thanksgiving.

                Well Shit.

                I am going to fast forward to the night before Thanksgiving, I have learned two important things while in Florida so far, the legal tobacco purchasing age is only eighteen, and not a single retailer carries the filtered peach Swishers that I love to smoke. So I am sitting next to the pond, smoking an unfiltered raspberry cigarette watching the ducks stir on the surface of the pond. I allow the smoke from the cigar to build up around my head as I wander into my thought to formulate a prayer for Thanksgiving. I assumed that the structure of a prayer was rather similar to that of a speech.

                Introduction

                Main point 1

                Main point 2

                Main point 2

                Conclusion

                The introduction would not be an issue, all I would have to do is thank god for the food that we will have spent all day cooking, then kiss his ass for the nest three lines and then tell him how awesome he is again. So I right out a quick sketch of my prayer

                Thank you god for not wiping us out over the past year, of all the people who have died in the past  year, clearly I am among the chosen few who should stick around for the next episode of this sick season of Survivor that you call life. Also thanks for the food, I am sure it will be awesome, I would like to be eating it right now, but no, we have to let it get just a bit colder so that I and literally millions of others can simultaneously flatter you for ninety seconds before forgetting about you completely until Christmas, where, if we have survived the shopping season, will use the birth of your son as an excuse to nail a fantastic fuck-ton of LED light to the front of our homes, accumulate massive amounts of debt of stuff we don’t need, and put up a nativity scene in the living room, which has been sitting in a shoe box for the past year and will be smashed to little pieces as jimmy waves around the lightsaber he got for Christmas. Also thanks for the lightsaber, no really, I am being genuine on this one, no child could ask for a better toy, they are cheap, they are durable, and if your dad forgets to hide the duct tape and spray paint, 100% customizable!

                Oh, and thanks for the food, which has now been half devoured by a combination of cats and decomposition due to the natural passing of time that it has take you say this prayer. Amen.

I tear the paper from my book and light it on fire with my cigarette. 

                Thanksgiving Day is here, and in-between the football game, the cooking, and writing my prayer, I take a moment to reflect of what I should be thankful for. I am glad that I am healty, for now; if the cigarettes have their way then I will be dead before I am eligible to be president. I am thankful for my friends, who I could not possibly hope to replace, and who have set such a high standard for friends that I find it hard to welcome in new friends, because few can meet that high bar. I am thankful for my family, my father, who taught me kindness, my brother who taught me wit, and my mother, who taught me discipline. I am thankful for my grandparents, a more loving pair of individuals could not be found in this world. And so, as we sit down at the table, our turkey cooked in enough butter to give Paula Deen an aneurism, we join hands, bow our heads, and I begin to pray.

                “Three and a half centuries ago lord, a group of pilgrims, inspired by you and driven by courage, left their homes in England to start a new life in the New World. Their journey was perilous, and landfall did very little to ease their struggle. They fought to survive against the elements, and established their homes, but they were hungry, ragged and tired. But when fall came and their harvest was stocked, they all came together and gave thanks for what they had, and they remembered those they had left behind, and those who had passed on along the way.

                Lord, today we continue the tradition established all those years ago, as we gather together and give thanks for what we have, our health, or friends, and out families. And as we face the year to come we, like the pilgrims, will be inspired by you, and driven by our courage, In your name, Amen.”

                As I unpacked my luggage back home, making sure to hide the large boxes of Tobacco products from my parents, they asked me how my thanksgiving was. I told them about the security checkpoint, and the ducks, and ruby Tuesday, and Jaws, and I told them about the prayer, and I recited it to them, and after a moment, my dad finally spoke up.   

                “Isn’t that the Thanksgiving proclamation from The West Wing?”

                Well Shit.