Student SPHere 2008-09

Thanksgiving has always made me feel like a death row inmate having his final meal. I suppose that’s a little overdramatic—finals are definitely not as bad as being executed, but you get the idea. Can you really enjoy your family (assuming you have an enjoyable family) and good food (assuming someone in your family can cook good food), knowing that in mere hours, you are going to be an overwhelmed basket case plagued by a veritable avalanche of exams and papers? If I were in charge of the universe, I would simply make school start in early August and have finals before Thanksgiving so that we wouldn’t have to endure two and a half weeks of stressful nonsense every December. But if I were queen of the universe, I would also make calculus and physics mandatory courses in high school, Ugg boots illegal, and the entire state of Minnesota would be designated a penal colony (think Stalin’s Siberia), so perhaps it would be for the best if I weren’t in charge. So, like everyone else at the U, today I trudged into work and class wishing it were still Thanksgiving, and praying that my sanity remains intact until the afternoon of the 18th.
But there was something sadly absent this Thanksgiving: an icon of American gluttony that has graced tables across this fair nation for generations: the John Madden turducken. For those of you who may be unaware of the origins of this glorious trifecta of poultry badassness, let me explain: it is a chicken (deboned) stuffed inside of a duck (deboned) stuffed inside of a turkey, so that every serving contains a portion of each bird. Every year on Thanksgiving, John Madden prepares a turducken and then consumes it with the help of several NFL players at one of the Thanksgiving Day football games. Unfortunately, due to poor health (who knows how THAT happened), Madden chose not to cook a turducken this year. The outrage expressed by some of society’s more couth members was understandable. How dare Madden spit in the eye of one of the traditions that makes America the nation that it is (fat as heck). To some, Thanksgiving without the turducken may seem like the Fourth of July without fireworks, or Valentine’s Day without cheap wine and bad chocolate. But let me tell you that some of our nation’s finest young minds really came through for their country this Thanksgiving. Not only did they act as true patriots, defying the will of the mighty John Madden, and insist on creating and consuming the iconic sextaped that has so eloquently defined American redneck culture, but they in their unwavering commitment to all that America stands for, did not stop at the turducken! No, these proud young men were not content to replicate what John Madden so irreverently failed to compose, but rather in a flurry of what can only be called pure genius, these innovators of culinary excellence gave rise to a new level of sheer artery obstruction: the turbacoducken. That’s right, they took a turducken and wrapped it in BACON! If this concept offends you, then the terrorists have truly won.
I did not, in fact, eat a turducken or a turbacoducken on Thanksgiving, but I did watch a LOT of football (I know, you’re stunned!). My husband and I had a nice, quiet meal at home, and the best part was we both got to sleep in!! The weekend as a whole was restorative and relaxing. Now I just have to make it until the 18th…