Pilgrims made mincemeat of people
A little goodie I'd like to share from freepress.com
"The story of Thanksgiving always warms the heart of Great Patriots such as myself, J. Edgar Hoover and Tom Brady. Surely you have heard it by now.
Hundreds of years ago, when a band of tough, industrious White People arrived in America, they came upon a group of people who, technically speaking, lived here already.
The White People were not happy and argued their case -- they had made reservations weeks in advance, the lady on the phone promised them a suite, etc.
In their frustration, the White People called the people who lived here already "Indians," which is approximately as accurate as referring to people from Grand Island, Neb., as "Ethiopians."
After a few days of bickering, all parties came to a reasonable and fair solution: The White People would get 99.9999993% of the land, and the Indians would each get a piece of paper that read, "THIS CERTIFICATE ENTITLES THE BEARER TO OPEN A CASINO IN 500 YEARS."
The Indians also asked the White People to stop calling them "Indians," since they had never been to India and didn't even like curry.
The White People agreed that was a reasonable request and said they would pass it along to their great-great-great-great-great-great- great-great-great-great- great-great-grandchildren, who would refer to the Indians as "Native Americans."
The lawyers then hammered out the details.
NATIVE AMERICANS' LAWYER: "Can't the term 'Native Americans' refer to anybody who was born in this country?"
WHITE PEOPLE'S LAWYER: "Heh, heh."
So you can see why everybody was thankful.
Who wants pie?
The White People and the Native Americans then banded together to ensure that of all the countries in the world, America would be the fattest.
They ate turkey, stuffing, cranberry "sauce" straight out of the can, sweet potatoes, mashed potatoes, fried potatoes and any other potato-like item they could find until their guts were hanging over their pants, in a way they frankly found disgusting, but they couldn't help themselves and kept looking at each other's guts, anyway.
The White People also recognized that the Native Americans loved playing lacrosse, so they promised to play it every Thanksgiving, but first they changed all the rules and decided to call it football. At that point, everybody shook hands and enjoyed a hearty belch.
That, dear, children, is the heartwarming true story of why you will spend this Thursday watching grown men ram into each other and wondering why Uncle Sal has no idea where his waistline is supposed to be.
Thanksgiving is probably our most universally celebrated holiday, probably because of its promise to America: "all of the food, none of the religion."
If you have a free moment Thursday afternoon -- we recommend one of those annoying timeouts when a football player is lying on the turf, wondering whether his leg can be reattached -- please remember how this wonderful holiday started.
November 19, 2007
BY MICHAEL ROSENBERG
FREE PRESS COLUMNIST
BY MICHAEL ROSENBERG
FREE PRESS COLUMNIST
Contact MICHAEL ROSENBERG at 313-222-6052 or mrosenberg@freepress.com.
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http://www.freep.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20071119/FEATURES01/711190323/1081/COL
http://www.freep.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20071119/FEATURES01/711190323/1081/COL
