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Can you believe it’s Thanksgiving already?

It seems like just yesterday when I finished stowing away the patio furniture and beach chairs. Okay, so it was just yesterday! I’ve been busy. So sue me.

And once again it’s that time when all Americans gather together with their family and loved ones (the two groups often being mutually exclusive) to thank God, Jesus, Allah, Buddha, their lucky stars, etc., for the many blessings which have been bestowed upon us over the past year.

As has become my custom, I have compiled a list of the things for which I am especially thankful this year, in the hope that they may spur you to think about the many blessings in your own life (rather than about the inevitable curses).

So here we go:

I’m thankful that I didn’t sign up to join the Taliban when they were looking for “a few good men.”

I’m thankful that Regis Philbin isn’t on every channel on my T.V.

I’m thankful that I didn’t put a whole lot more of my retirement money into those Internet stocks which looked “so incredibly cheap” at this time last year.

I’m thankful that I don’t have to wear Britney Spears’ bare-midriff wardrobe, given the gut I’ve put on from sitting at my computer writing these columns.

I’m thankful that the white powder I discovered on my mail a few weeks ago turned out to be just my mailman’s cocaine.

I’m thankful that I went for the Chevy instead of the BMW, long before I knew how flaccid the economy would be now.

I’m thankful that I didn’t peak too early in life (I hope).

I’m thankful that I didn’t land a high-paying job in the World Trade Center, and saddened that anybody else did.

I’m thankful that Al Gore ended up with a four-year sabbatical from government service, if only so we don’t have to hear about the Social Security “lock box” every ten minutes.

I’m thankful that I’m not that guy who got flattened like a pancake by a 350-pound defensive lineman on last week’s Monday Night Football telecast.

I’m thankful that my parents decided to come to America and work their butts off, since I wouldn’t be here (or anywhere else, for that matter) if they hadn’t.

I’m thankful that I wasn’t given Michael Jackson’s facial surgery by mistake during my last visit to the hospital.

I’m thankful that somebody invented the computer, without which I’d probably still be banging away on a typewriter at my college rate of about one double-spaced page every twenty minutes, with edits requiring another ten minutes of “Liquid Paper” application, blowing and retyping.

I’m thankful that somebody invented the fax machine, but not when I’m receiving junk faxes that use my paper and ink!

I’m thankful that I have the time to sit down and realize how thankful I should be.

I’m thankful that God hasn’t taken my occasional (okay, frequent) bitching and moaning about the minor frustrations of daily life as a sign that I’m not happy to be here.

I’m thankful that my occasional fashion transgressions aren’t felonies punishable by prison or death by lethal injection.

Have a Happy Thanksgiving!!!

Barry Rabin