IT'S AUTUMN NOW, gang. The leaves have changed, the temperature is dropping, the days are shorter, the rain is turning discarded copies of the Portland Mercury into weird sludge gunk slurry that you step in on your way to work, and then you spend the rest of the day picking tiny pieces of this column off your shoes. Yes, friends, autumn is here, which also means Thanksgiving is just around the corner and that might make you excited for a moment—but I'm here to sludge gunk on your parade. Thanksgiving is the wackest of the major holidays.

Thanksgiving has all the basic elements of a lovely evening—food, family, drinking, a diversity of dessert choices—but all these wonderful things are burdened by their affiliation with Thanksgiving. The whole holiday is a lamer version of a great family get-together. We'd be better off just having a big fun dinner at the end of every November. It is my contention, dear readers, that Thanksgiving is busted.

The food sucks, pal. Turkey is straight-up hogwater. It's the worst bird meat. You know you're a shitty bird meat when motherfucking ostrich is better than you. Ostrich. God's muppet. You know why people are deep-frying turkey now? Because it's the only way to enjoy turkey. Turkey should only be eaten at state fairs next to other foods you would never eat unless it was deep-fried like Kool-Aid or vegetables.

Get the hell out of here, turkey—I'm done with you. I would straight up rather eat a giant pile of the bird's feathers than its cleaved, cooked flesh. Sweet potatoes are very clearly doing too much (be sweet or be a potato; you're spreading yourself too thin in this dual role). Mashed potatoes are cool, but they aren't really a Thanksgiving food, they're just showing up to the party 'cause they're a food of empathy, and they feel bad you have to eat fucking turkey. Pumpkin pie is delicious—I have no quarrel with pumpkin pie, but it's probably mostly good because of the whipped cream. While I'm at it, rhubarb can fuck off.

Seeing your friends and family is great, but you only really get to talk to them before dinner. After dinner it's all about lying on the floor, gasping for breath like a birthing elephant. The only words you're capable of uttering are, "I FLEW TOO CLOSE TO THE SUN."

It's good to be grateful, yeah, but do we really need to consign it to one day? We should all strive to be grateful every day, right? And dance in the light of Christ's love. That's right, everyone, I'm a big-time Christian now. Just kidding, but we really should be grateful. We should be grateful every time we get together with friends, we should be grateful every time we see our loved ones—we don't need a day for it. Take a second and think about what you're grateful for right now. I'll go first: I'm grateful I'm not eating a disgusting piece of dry turkey meat.