(Warning: there is poop in this column. Those of you who have, until now, thanked me for refraining from scatological references, please forgive me. But this is story that has to be told.)
 
    As you may have gathered from my headline this week, I am not Thanksgiving’s biggest fan. Don’t get me wrong—I have plenty to be thankful for—my family, my friends, my Mr. T. punching puppet—but I have always had something against the actual Thanksgiving Day. I think it has something to do with the pilgrims and their stupid hats.
 
    It always seems that, at the Shable house, anyway, things go phenomenally wrong Thanksgiving week, and this year was no exception:
 
    Tuesday: I come home from school and begin an intensive program called "Call everyone you know and tell them you’re home so they’ll want to come over and play with you." I discover that I no longer have any friends, and I should probably just kill myself. However, we have sloppy joes for dinner, so I am thankful.
 
    Wednesday: I spend the entire day thinking about how I should be reading a biography on Orson Welles for one of my classes. I do everything on earth, including getting flipped off at the bank for no reason other than the fact that I am, apparently, an old fogie now, except read the Orson Welles biography.
 
That night, while watching "Who Wants To Be A Millionaire," my mother discovers (ALERT: THIS IS WHERE THE POOP COMES IN. IF YOU DON’T LIKE POOP, DROP THE PAPER NOW) that somehow, one of my cats managed to do his business on the other cat, which means, of course, that I must be engaged in what will forever be known as The Great Cat Bath Fiasco. I am thankful that all I had to do was hold the cat, and never came into contact with any poop.

Thursday: Said poop cat develops a rare, probably poop-related disease, which causes him to scream every time he is touched, walk funny, refuse food and water, and sleep all the time (sort of like Richard Simmons! Except for the sleeping part. But I think he’s on drugs.) So, now certain my cat will be dead before nightfall, I fall into a stupor of depression, which worked out great, because "Sponge Bob Squarepants" was on.

This does not, however, mesh with my dad’s plan for the day, which is Stop At Nothing To Make Kimberly Clean The Family Room, Including Torture. I clean the family room grudgingly, but it is too late, and my father has entered Crabby Daddy mode, which he does not come out of until well after "It’s a Wonderful Life."

Later in the evening, I discover that my parents have the cremated remains of yet another cherished pet sitting in a tin on our mantelpiece, and have had it there for almost a year. I am thankful I did not know this extremely creepy fact until today.

Friday: I go to the dermatologist, who tells me that I have one of the worst cases of acne he has ever seen, and goes on to describe my intense ugliness in such detail that I begin to feel a Quasimodo-like hump growing out of my back. Fortunately for me, he is not frightened by my grotesque appearance and agrees to treat me, so soon I can walk the earth like other, more normal looking people without striking a great fear into their hearts. I am thankful that awkward phases can’t possibly last forever.