Thanksgiving = A Break from Selfishness

Oh Thanksgiving, an all-American parade of bizarre rituals built on a shaky moral foundation. There’s just so much to talk about! As the intersection of old world lore, messy mixed families, raging consumerism, big time sports, and faith, it’s the most uniquely American 48 hours. And don’t get me wrong – I totally dig it.

But for the post-college crowd, returning home for the holidays brings another tradition that we’re not so psyched about: loss of independence. Ironically, this uniquely American holiday unleashes some very un-American values – sacrificing one person for the whole, deference to elders, censorship, etc. Ok, maybe just American values of another time – or the ones we don’t trot out on 4th of July.

Coming home for Thanksgiving means not being in control for a few days. Back with our families, we’re just one of the group – and we’re definitely not the decision-makers. We’ve got to go along with the family agenda if we want to avoid the dreaded holiday scene making. It’s expected – and it’s just easier.

So, we all do our assigned task in the prep work (like a good little assembly line). At the dinner table we gloss over our lives with family-friendly veneers (to keep the extended relatives out of our hair) or bite our tongue when the “real” adults start talking politics in a way we don’t agree with. And then we end up at family movies that no one really wants to see (except Mom).

But where I really notice my suspension of selfishness is when it comes to the god stuff.  My family happens to be very religious – and I’m not at all.  The jig is up – everyone knows I’m a non-believer and basically live my life in exact opposition to their world view.  But come holiday time, it just seems wrong to go against the family religious beliefs.  It’s time to play along.  So I obediently dress up and come along to church and sing our family’s traditional grace at the table.  If I had it my way, I would go nowhere near the Thanksgiving church service, and I would save the musical grace tradition for only the family members with decent singing voices.  But for the days surrounding Thanksgiving, it’s just not up to me.

So maybe it’s not just the weird family dynamics and traditions that can make these holidays feel so different than every day life. We’re playing a whole different role at Thanksgiving – the dutiful supporting member of the group.

But hey, I guess we have every other day of the year to be totally selfish – at least for another few years. And that is something I’m very thankful for.

New York is a FRIENDLY town.

Greetings from New York City. The Big Apple. The City. Blah blah blah blah. There are a whole lot of stereotypes surrounding this great city of ours. First and foremost, is that all New Yorkers are arrogant assholes who are always in a rush and don’t have the slightest concern for anyone else. Harsh? Yes. True? APPARENTLY. Now, I don’t mean to knock the city that I love, but some people just fit the stereotype so well, my faith in stereotypes is renewed.

Exhibit A: The Food Emporium, Upper West Side. The Upper West Side is a lovely place to live. A quieter place than both mid- and downtown. A good place to raise a family, if you’re into that sort of thing. A good place for TERRIBLE DOUCHEBAGS WHO USE THE C-WORD LIBERALLY. It all began at the self-checkout line. You know, the line that is automated to make lives easier and save the company money, but then has to be supervised by a real live person because it breaks everytime you use it, thereby costing more time and money? Right. So. Being the good thrifty consumer that she is, a friend of mine was at the self-checkout counter, filling out one of those shopper savings card forms. It was a small form, asking for a few basic pieces of information: name, address, phone number, e-mail. Enter: 30-something professional waiting in line.

30-something douchenozzle: Are you REALLY going to fill that whole thing out right now?

My Friend: It’s going to take me longer to talk to you about it than fill it out, so… (turns and continues filling out the form.)

Douchenozzle: Bitch!

Granted, my friend’s response was a bit snippy. But certainly not snippy enough to warrant the last comment, or the following…

(Douchenozzle approaches the next open checkout counter. Walks over to my friend, gets all up in her face.)

Douchenozzle: You, lady, are a CUNT.

WHAT?! Excuse me?! Did that guy just call my friend the C-WORD?!?!?! I, being the atypical New Yorker, am rather meek and prefer to avoid confrontation whenever I can. Today was no exception. But as we walked out of the grocery store, I started to think about all of the things I could, and should, have said to him. “Excuse me, SIR, did you just call my friend a CUNT? How would you feel if I called you a petulent douchenozzle? For no reason. What makes you think that your time is so goddamn precious that getting delayed a mere 30 SECONDS is going to make the FREAKING WORLD EXPLODE? You are everything that is wrong with this city, and you are the reason that there are people in the world who hate New York. Congratulations, asshole.”

But I didn’t say any of those things. Instead, as we were leaving, my friend gave him a friendly, “have a good night, sir”.

Defy stereotypes. Kill ‘em with kindness.

Anyway, the situation I encountered at the Food Emporium begs a few questions. Who the hell is this guy? What’s his backstory? Where does all this aggression come from? What has this man gone through that makes him such an insufferable dickrocket? Well, allow me to speculate…

This guy is a lawyer. Mid-sized firm, decent salary. He is 34 years old. He lives in a modest one-bedroom on the Upper West Side. He went to a good school and had dreams of making bank handling big-time corporate lawsuits. He is currently drowning in paperwork and wishing he had followed his CHILDHOOD dream of becoming an astronaut.

I like to think that at least SOME of this is relatively accurate. In which case, it is somewhat explanatory as to why this dude is so damn ANGRY. But it’s not the whole picture. There’s a theory that, overall, the reason so many New Yorkers are so bitter and angry is due to scarcity. Scarcity is a concept that can be applied to any region, but we New Yorkers are arguably more attuned to scarcity than anywhere else in America. Scarcity of space and time, in particular. You see it in the subways, the bodegas, in midtown at lunchtime. THERE ARE SO MANY PEOPLE and there is just not enough space. And time? Forget it, no one in New York has any goddamn time, the little worker bees. With such constraints on space and time, New Yorkers become tightly wound balls of stress. When these constraints reach a boiling point is when you see incidents like the one I’ve described.

And when I thought of all of this, I was glad I hadn’t yelled at him. It’s not his fault he lives on a small island with millions of other people. Sort of.