Praise the Lord and Pass the Tryptophan

I can certainly look forward to the best meal of the year come next Thursday. After all, it is Thanksgiving and my aunt puts on the biggest and best spread since the last time the 49ers were in the Super Bowl. You don't dare go away hungry from that stuff. Truly, Thanksgiving is an interesting tradition. Sure there's egg nog and ham at Christmas, hot dogs and potato salad on the 4th of July and endless candy at Halloween, but Thanksgiving is the true lone holiday where your very purpose is to gorge yourself as much as possible and that's solely what the day is about. Think about it, Thanksgiving is meant to signify the peace between the Indians, errr, Native Americans, and the Pilgrims, and what did they do to mark this peace? They certainly didn't hold hands around the fire and sing "Kumbaya". They ate. A lot. Considering how pathetically skinny I am, and that I make little to no effort to change that status at the current time, a day like this is big time, and I guess I must store up a year's worth of appetite for the day, cuz I try to top myself every year with how much I eat.

That, however, is not the issue I take with Thanksgiving. I, of course, must take issue with something here, or else there's no point in writing the column (you oughta know that by now). My issue is with something that cannot be solved by modern science or chemistry or any of your grandma's best cooking techniques. I take issue with a chemical. Get used to hearing this word, it'll come up a lot between now and next Thursday, and only right before Thanksgiving, I might add. The word is tryptophan. I would dare call it "Turkey's Revenge". What it does is it makes you sleepy. You ever wonder when you were young why not two hours after a huge Thanksgiving feast you and your cousins would walk into the living room after a particularly rough game of outdoor football to find the older relatives passed out in couches and easy chairs like someone just gave them pudding and told them to wait for the spaceship? Tryptophan, my friend; they wuz drugged. Scientists have yet to determine why this only a turkey phenomenon, and therefore only a seasonal problem, but there it is. Think about it, though, if you're a turkey and your destiny is to get decapitated and wind up on someone's dinner table as the centerpiece of a mammoth serving of food, you might as well get some pleasure in knowing that your body chemistry will put those who eat you out cold. Considering, however, the fact that only turkeys seem to have this situation, it might just explain why turkeys serve no real purpose when alive and are pretty much the dumbest birds to come down the pike.

Here's another problem I have with the whole tryptophan thing, other than the fact that it exists. What is the other big thing now commonly associated with Thanksgiving? If you didn't say football, smack yourself. That is the only other major thing about the day (Macy's parade, my ass). So, why therefore, do you serve turkey and drug someone to sleep when there is football to be watched? You should NOT fall asleep watching football. Hockey, maybe. Golf, probably. Football, not a chance. However, most Americans unless they have a team to root for (or money riding on the game) are out cold by halftime of the late game. Not to sound sexist, but perhaps this is a tradition carried on by the women of the household to get the men to fall asleep and then they can have their peaceful quiet conversation. Considering that in my family, we're down to two men at the table at Thanksgiving (myself and my uncle), this isn't as hard a task as you might imagine. Now that I think about it, they schedule football games on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday as well, and you know what you usually eat on those days? Leftover turkey. I think I may be on to something here.

This tryptophan phenomenon is especially dangerous if you plan on DRIVING HOME after Thanksgiving dinner. This unfortunately is the case with me, much as I'd like to stuff my face and sleep until Sunday. I have to work a 6am-noon shift, hop in my car and drive three hours out to the aunt's house for dinner, and then, not long after I have finished stuffing myself, I must hop back in the car and drive three more hours (in the dark) to get home cuz I have yet another 6am-noon shift the following day. So, I might ask, would I not be driving under the influence on my return trip home? That's just plain dangerous, my friend, sending me out on the roads drugged up, and after dark no less, recipe for erratic driving if I've ever heard of one. And for those of you who know me, save the "how is that different from the way you normally drive" jokes.

Now I certainly do not intend this column to scare people into not eating turkey this upcoming Thursday. Honestly, if what I have written has not accomplished its purpose of making you laugh and instead has you considering going vegan, you need help, my friend. Eat all the turkey you desire this year and every year; Thanksgiving, as I have previously noted, was solely created so that we could all eat like no human being ever has or perhaps ever should. Just keep in the back of your mind that you ARE being drugged as you eat your holiday turkey, it's a simple fact and cannot be escaped. Then again, you may get off on that sort of thing; if so, then you too need help. Do NOT, I repeat, DO NOT think that I have given you some sort of excuse for doing something stupid and perhaps illegal; tryptophan, while legal, is not to be messed with. I can see the exchange now...

"Officer, I swear, I didn't want seconds, but my aunt persisted..."