Wednesday, November 22, 2006

"Thanks for Nothing Melissa." by Ted Brubaker

Originally appearing in the Beaver County Gazette, November 23, 1940

This Thanksgiving, everyone should gather around the dinner table with their loved ones and say thanks to the Big Guy for whatever the heck he gave you this year! Thanks for the stuff. Thanks for the car. Thanks for the heating bills. Thanks for the job. Thanks for polio. Thanks for the big stinking ink blotch on my shirt pocket. Thanks for my cheating wife.

If you are going to be around a dinner table this Thursday filled with the people you love, say thanks. If you are going to be eating a cold turkey sandwich with a pickle spear while sitting at a card table in your living room, thank your cheating, lying, selfish wife! I hope you're happy Melissa... I hope you're happy!

I never saw it coming. I should have known something was up when the mail man started visiting twice, sometimes three times a day. We never got that much mail before, but suddenly here it comes: a downpour of postage! But me, I'm too busy to worry about such things. I'm running a newspaper! I'm getting the news to the ungrateful dwellers of Beaver County! My wife and her doings at home should be the least of my worries... but here she is making sweet with the mail man!

My life is shambles. I love you Melissa and I need you to come back to me! You're my glue and until I find another horse, I can't get more glue! I need the glue!

I don't know how to cook a turkey.

-Ted Brubaker, Editor-in-Chief, Beaver County Gazette