Thanksgiving

Happy Thanksgiving to everyone!  I hope you’re all so busy with friends and family that you’re reading this days after the fact.  My husband is cooking up a delicious dairy-free feast to accommodate my annoying and untimely new food allergy, my mother-in-law will be visiting and bringing goodies of her own, and I get 4 blissful days off of work.  I’m also too broke to even think about shopping on Friday, but even with unlimited funds, I wouldn’t be going anywhere.

The first Black Friday I ever worked was at Shoe Carnival where I worked a 6am to 10pm shift and watched people behave like animals.  I saw two women get into a fist fight over a pair of shoes while their kids watched.  I witnessed the worst of people in a concentrated form, and it was terrifying.  These days, a 6am opening is lame compared to the stores who open as early as 2pm on Thanksgiving Day to give shoppers early access to sales.  It’s a horrible thing.

Supply and demand keeps stores stretching further and further into Thanksgiving.  Midnight worked for a while, but even that wasn’t enough, so now, retail employees across the country find themselves having an early dinner (or skipping it altogether) so they can go to work and appease the crazies who have nothing better to do than map out a strategy to hit as many stores as possible in 24 hours so they can maybe save a couple hundred dollars.

I do most of my Christmas shopping online at this point because I see no point in going to stand in line at Target at 4am to maybe get a good deal on a flat screen sold to me buy some guy who would rather be at home playing Xbox while slowly slipping into a turkey-induced food coma.  There are places that definitely need to be open on Thanksgiving; you need gas stations, law enforcement, some type of food services (grocery, fast food, or otherwise), health care, and so on.  We do not need to have TJ Maxx, GameStop, Best Buy, Walmart, or other businesses who sell things no one really NEEDS on Thanksgiving.  Let those employees have a day off.  They’re going to suffer enough on Friday, why can’t we let them take Turkey Day off?

If we stop giving in to the pressure and stay home on Thanksgiving, stores will stop with these insane hours and stupid sales.  Even if you don’t care at all about Thanksgiving, you should care about having a day off from the real world.  A day where everything can go quiet and you can focus on being with loved ones, being with yourself, or just taking some quality time for your favorite activity.  If you honestly can’t control yourself (or can’t stand your family) and HAVE to go shopping before you start convulsing, go online shopping.  Lock yourself in a room and go bid-happy on eBay.  Find something to do that doesn’t involve making retail employees leave their house so you can get $5 off a new jacket.

Today is either a wonderful day to spend with family or the perfect day to sleep until 4pm.  Either way, it’s a day we all deserve to take advantage of and stay away from the harsh neon lights of the Super Stores down the street.  Stop being a mindless retail puppet, lured from your home by the promise of 50% off Playstation games.  The only alarms you set should be food prep related, and the only reason to get out of sweatpants should be to change into a pair of even stretchier sweatpants.  And if you do choose to ignore me because the deals at Sears are just TOO good to pass up, try not to be a cunt to those who are skipping their holiday just so you can buy a weed wacker and electric drill.

Say Cheese

I always wondered why certain people would choose to cut amazing food groups out of their diet.  Vegetarians, vegans, the “I don’t have a gluten allergy but I go gluten free for the health benefits” crowd.  I used to say often that if I was allergic to peanuts, I would lose my mind.  I love food that is worthy of the highest critical praise and I love a greasy basket of fried nonsense from the state fair.  Eating surrounds so many events in life and it’s best to go in with zero restrictions.  Or at least it was.

In early August of 2015, I was diagnosed with severe lactose intolerance and a milk allergy.  I can’t even eat something that “may have” come into contact with dairy without getting horribly sick and feeling miles south of the worst hangover I’ve ever had combined with what I imagine the human body feels like after falling off a cliff.  Farewell pizza, cheese curds, most baked goods and alfredo sauce.  Hello soy cheese and almond milk and butter made out of oil.  Forget casually going to a restaurant and ordering whatever sounds good because half the time, there’s some milk product hiding away in the meal that keeps me from getting close to it.  Hell, I washed dishes the other day that had sour cream on them and got a godawful rash on both of my arms.  Things are very different for me now.

What I’ve noticed more than anything is that the world isn’t friendly to people with dietary restrictions.  Order something without cheese and be prepared for people to look at you as if you have leprosy.  It’s not fun being THAT person who has to turn down birthday cake at work or pizza parties with friends or Halloween candy because your body will reject it in all sorts of fun ways.  It’s difficult to avoid allergens when it seems that virtually everything is processed in a factory that also processes food items with nuts and milk and gluten.  I won’t even get started on how expensive it becomes to find things that are acceptable and safe.

At work, people look at me with sad faces when I turn down certain foods and give them an honest reason why.  When I don’t feel like giving a reason, they look at me funny, as if I’m a freak of nature for declining an 8am doughnut.  Dealing with this for the last month and a half has made me very confused about why there is barely any focus on dietary restrictions.  I have to make separate shopping trips to get what I need because stores just don’t carry it.  I don’t expect the world to cater to every individual need, but lactose intolerance is hardly a rare thing.  Mine may be more serious than most, but it makes me wonder why such a large population of people are left without reasonable options.  My goal is to find a way to get more options; I just need to find the starting line.