I’ve always been an advocate of short work weeks. I’ve been pushing my company really hard to go to the 1-day work week for some time. So far, so bad. We did recently reach a compromise of me keeping me job by working 5 days a week.

Don’t worry though. They are starting to crack. Things are starting to happen. They are getting so annoyed with me and my constant belly aching that my better than expected results are going to happen soon. I think they are going to put me on the zero days a week, not getting paid at all shift. I’ve been working so hard on my annoying skills with my family, that no one is talking to me at all lately. It’s working! On an even better note, it’s been weirdly quiet and peaceful lately. The only communication I’ve received lately is dagger side eyes. I hope this really lasts…

Since it is Thanksgiving week, I only have to work three days this week. On the bitter side, I have to cram five days of work into three days. Which means, I have to actually work for most of the day, and I can’t just look at funny internet memes for most of the day.

Thanksgiving. You know Thanksgiving. The US holiday that celebrates the dinner of the English colonists of Plymouth and the Wampaoag Native Americans. Somehow, it happened on exactly the same day as Thanksgiving. Crazy coincidence.

We all know that part. But that isn’t the whole story. There is actually a bit of history that was deleted. Some of the history got erased, because they put it on a Microsoft Word file and forgot to save it, instead of using Google Sheets that would have automatically saved it. Because of their carelessness, we don’t have what happened the day after.

I’ll let you know the real history of Thanksgiving. After Thanksgiving Thursday, a lot of the Pilgrims/Native Americans realized that Christmas was only a month away and none of them had purchased gifts for anyone and they were looking for deals, because they used a lot of their money on the Thanksgiving dinner. They also noticed that each side had unique gifts that their families would not have known about. So they all got up really early, like 4 am, and waited in lines at each other’s mercantile booths. Some of the merchants saw that the lines were getting too long at a competitor’s booth, so they offered lower prices and free gifts to people to steal away customers from other merchants. All the merchants made so much money from the day, and everyone had all the gifts they needed, except for some men who liked to procrastinate until Christmas Eve.

People that weren’t interested in buying discounted merchandise that day, because they didn’t want to get up at 4 am, decided to sleep in, and when they woke up, they didn’t want turkey again. They wanted some bacon and ham instead. So they found the fattest pig and made some bacon. After the Baconfest, some of them took the leftover pigskin and realized it was really tough, like leather. So they fashioned that skin into and oblong shape and stitched it together. They started throwing this pigskin around to each other and soon started tackling the person that held the elusive pigskin.

Later in the day, only the best players participated, while a few used jiggered the camera into a thing that could take multiple pictures and recorded the players. They then used the stitched together pictures to display the action on the side of one of the tents. Many sat on chairs and couches to watch the really good players compete to see who could get 100 yards to the opposite sides. They even built these field goals to get to. Some of the strong kickers competed to see who could kick the pigskin through the uprights. They thought it was really fun, and since the team that won was called the Owls, they decide to call the game, the Superb Owls. After the competition, they let the winners of the competition split a turkey leg.

At the end of the day, they all were all just sitting down, contemplating what a great day it was. They had turned down all the lights on the field and had gathered around a small campfire. One of the pilgrims casually said to the group, “I don’t think I’m going to go back to work tomorrow, or Sunday, and I’ll be lucky to make it back to plowing on Monday. By the way, what day is it, again?” It was pitch black outside.

“It’s Friday, a really Black Friday”.

“That has a really nice ring to it. We should do this every year. Let’s call the day after Thanksgiving, Black Friday.”

“And we should call the Monday after Cyber Monday!” a guy named Cyber Monday said even more enthusiastically.

Everyone mocked him heartily. “Yeah, right like that will ever catch on. Don’t be such a narcissist, Cyber!” and they all went to bed.

Many people think of Thanksgiving as a time of the year to get together with family, eat food, talk politics and fight, right after they talk about what they are thankful for. But for those of us who know the real history of Thanksgiving, we know it’s not just about thankfulness. We know it as a time of greed, where we buy as many things as we can, at the cheapest price. It’s a time for laziness. To watch football all day on big screens and plant our behinds on comfortable couches and La-Z-Boys. It’s an extended weekend where we don’t go to work or do much until Monday, and when we get back to work on Monday, we are supposed to spend all day buying stuff online.

It was nice of us to set aside one day to give insincere compliments to people we don’t really like (our families), but we know, just like the Pilgrims and the Native Americans, that this upcoming weekend is more about being our true selves, the greedy, lazy and argumentative people that we really are.

Let’s not forget the lessons our ancestors were really trying to teach us, but weren’t able to, because the history was erased on a Microsoft Word file.

Bitter Thanksgiving to all and to all A Great Black Friday, Small Business Saturday, Lazy Sunday and Cyber Monday

ARRRRGGGGHHHHHH

Bitter Real Story of Thanksgiving Ben