Turkey Day gobbles our sanity, so let's squash it
By Beth Teitell
Wednesday, November 24, 2004

Count me in the amend-the-Constitution crowd. But not because I want Arnold in the White House. Uh-uh. I want to get rid of Thanksgiving.
     By 9:30 a.m. yesterday, with the doomsday clock ticking down, four (usually) pleasant women had already whined to me about the holiday, and by noon, the complaining was so pervasive that if you didn't know better, you'd think the nation was facing a group root canal, without Novocaine.
     The sentiment was best summed up by one of my colleagues, who suspected a box she'd just received in the mail contained a bomb (why, I'm not sure).
     She opened it anyway, and when the contents didn't explode, she actually looked disappointed. ``Darn, now I won't get out of Thanksgiving.''
     Later in the day I received an e-mail from a friend: ``By the time the meal hits the table, who among us is grateful?'' she began, without prompting.
     ``What we'd LIKE to pray is `Thank you Lord, for this food, especially the turkey, which I've been defrosting since Tuesday night, taking up most of the bottom shelf of the fridge, so that everything else is wedged in sideways.
     `` `Bless this stuffing, which, while delicious and a gift of your bounty, is so high in carbs I'll be a bloated beached whale by tomorrow morning. I thank thee for these damned pearlonions, which NOBODY but Aunt Grace likes, and . . .' ''
     The anti-Thanksgiving feelings were running so high in my office that I worried an NBA-style brawl was going to break out. It's hard to say who was more miserable - those hosting the compulsory get-togethers, or those traveling to them.
     I was actually afraid to say that I like Thanksgiving, so I left my department to go reread the little-known section of the Constitution in which the framers lay out the rules for the holiday:
     ``Natural born citizens, or those who've been living in this country at least one day, shall redeem all their miles, and change in Atlanta, or drive eight hours on I-95 in stop-and-go traffic, on the fourth Wednesday or Thursday of November, to visit relatives they may or may not like, and shall eat too much. Then they shall travel back, and the traffic shall be worse.''
     As we all know, it takes two-thirds of both houses of Congress and three-fourths of the states to amend the Constitution.
     This could be a way for blue states and red states to find common ground. To let conservatives and liberals break bread over passing the turkey.
     Or not.