Published: November 24, 2009 10:58 pm      

DUVALL: What’s the opposite of Thanksgiving?

There are a few built-in column topics we opinion writers can rely on each year. One of them is the “what we’re thankful for” Thanksgiving column. The darn thing writes itself.

But striving as I always do for a pinch of originality, I wanted to stay away from the norm. Alas, I’m not that creative.

I am, however, a tad sarcastic. Wee bit. Having staked my claim as this newspaper’s Curmudgeon-in-Chief (that sounds better than “Managing Curmudgeon”) I thought: Wouldn’t it be fun to do the opposite?

Here is my abridged list of things for which I am in no way thankful:

• Sarah Palin’s book, “Going Rogue.”

I object not on political grounds. My issues are decidedly more syntactical.

A friend recently pointed out the actual definition of the word rogue. I’ll let you pick which one best applies to our nation’s standard bearer for grammatical miscreants.

Rogue (n) — 1. a dishonest, knavish person; scoundrel. 2. a playfully mischievous person; scamp: The youngest boys are little rogues. 3. a tramp or vagabond. 4. a rogue elephant or other animal of similar disposition. 5. Biology. a usually inferior organism, esp. a plant, varying markedly from the normal.

Perhaps even funnier, the list of synonyms: Villain, trickster, swindler, cheat, mountebank, quack.

So there you have it. Sarah Palin is, by her own admission, a quack.

• Those damn “Twilight” kids.

I’m tempted to start this mini-rant with the phrase “When I was their age ... “but that just makes me feel old.

But when I was their age, our vampires were scary. They freaked us out. That was the point. They weren’t cute or dreamy or hunky or hot. They were ugly and gave us nightmares.

There will always be young girls (and, in this instance, their creepily over-excited mothers), so I understand there will always be movies starring teenage boys with shiny faces. I’ve made peace with that nettlesome fact of life.

Please, Hollywood, stop confusing genres. I should be able to see a vampire movie and not risk accidentally wandering into some tween-squealing perky pop paradise.

What’s next? High School Musical 7: The Zombie Years?

• I am most certainly not thankful for Black Friday.

I’m a lousy consumer, which really means I’m a lousy American.

I can wear the same pair of jeans for years. I still own a standard-definition television and have no immediate plans to upgrade, despite all those repetitious HD channels my cable company offers. I haven’t owned a video game system since Sega Genesis came out in the mid-90s. If it wasn’t for the paper providing me with a new one, I would probably still be using the laptop computer I bought when I started college.

So all the hoopla over the door-busting, employee-trampling sales in Friday’s pre-dawn hours holds absolutely no appeal for me.

I’d much rather be in bed than engaging in a tug-of-war with some Twilight mom over a 75-percent-off North Face fleece.

And why do these sales have to take place in the middle of the night? The only time your alarm should go off at 3 a.m. is if you’re about to fly to Australia.

Stay in bed, people. The republic will survive.

• Health care. I’m sick of health care. It should be called “death mitigation.”

If I have to watch one more commercial on television for a drug I don’t need I’m moving to a cabin in Montana with no electricity.

My favorite part is when the announcer implores consumers, “ask your doctor for Zapex.”

If you’re asking your doctor for drugs, doesn’t that make him your dealer?

And doctors, please stop pretending you know what you’re talking about. Everyone says stop eating fatty food. But why is it every time I turn on the news I see some geezer turning 102 who’s eaten six bacon sandwiches a day since the McKinley administration?

Even coffee isn’t safe. Are the antioxidants staving off cancer or is the caffeine causing high blood pressure?

I’m just glad I don’t have breasts. They seem to be an unexpectedly sore subject this holiday season.

Don’t think I forgot about you, dentists: I know I don’t have to floss every day. No one flosses every day. I doubt even dentists floss every day. Who has time for that? Floss after you eat corn on the cob, ribs or popcorn — or on the morning of a dentist appointment with the vain hope of tricking them into believing you actually do it regularly.

Enjoy your turkey, people. And if you can do that while avoiding Sarah Palin, vampires, Walmart and dental floss, you can thank yours truly.

Eric DuVall is the managing editor

of the Tonawanda News.

His column appears Wednesdays

and Sundays. Contact him at eric.duvall@tonawanda-news.com.