The Waiting Is Killing Me
I love Thanksgiving, but now I’m getting seriously hungry
Are you like me? Are you so hungry you just want to chow down and feast like there’s no tomorrow? Because Thanksgiving dinner is the end all and be all of our holiday celebrations. And I’m getting impatient!
I know, I know, patience is a virtue and all that, it really is. But sometimes you just have to lead with your appetite and not your better judgment.
There is nothing quite so gratifying as tearing into that carefully prepared Thanksgiving feast, lovingly prepared and so quickly devoured. Mmmm. Yummers! OMG! Everything is so tasty, so appealing, so delicious looking!
Eating a giant Thanksgiving meal is not for the faint of heart, the queasy, the overly cautious. It is most definitely not the time to count calories.
It is time to encourage our primitive gorge and snooze reflexes, the ones we developed over the years ever since the Stone Age when we all lived in caves for minimum shelter. Life was simpler then, in many ways.
Technically speaking, it was the Paleolithic Era when we were all simple hunters and gatherers, sometimes both. Cro-Magnons and Neanderthals roamed the planet, living in caves, simple huts, or teepees.
Life expectancy was only a little over 30 years. Most deaths were caused by simple infections including dehydration and starvation. There were no doctors, no medicines, no co-pays.
To perpetuate our species, we had to develop different sets of genes to adapt to our bodies over the generations. We were not concerned with the latest fad diet or going to the gym to work out.
We all got plenty of exercise just trying to stay alive. Violence and warfare with other groups, trauma from wild animals, and deaths from childbirth were everyday occurrences, all part of the game.
Thank goodness we have all improved our lifestyles since then.
We craved food as a physical necessity back then, especially the taste of sugar and proteins, and we gorged whenever it was available.
It was eat-or-die, and there were no McDonalds, Taco Bells, or KFCs to see us through the rough spots, to weather the dark nights of our souls.
When the game was scarce or the crop was thin or nonexistent, there were no Safeways, no A &P, and no Piggly Wiggly to go shopping in. Imagine the hardships!
No Door Dash or Uber Eats to call up and place an order on our as-yet nonexistent cell phones. Oh, the horror!
Such privation, such hardships!
As a result, all primitive tribes indulged in the habit of gorging, of eating as much food as they possibly could whenever they got the opportunity. Sometimes as much as several pounds.
We didn’t care, we were just dying to get off.
After we stuffed ourselves to the point of passing out, we slept for hours, sometimes days until hunger woke us up again and we repeated the whole cycle all over.
Our bones were thicker, our muscles stronger because of the constant activity of just trying to stay alive. Life was a constant struggle to survive and we ate whatever we could get our hands on.
Not exactly a pretty picture, but a similar scene that will be re-enacted in countless homes throughout our annual Thanksgiving feasts.
After days and hours of anticipation, we will all stuff ourselves, jack up our tryptophan levels, and pass out for a cozy nap. Only to rise once again and head back for a second or third helping with stop-offs at the dessert table.
We are a hardy breed, and we will not be deterred. We have all gathered once again to feast with friends and family, and feast we shall!
For everything, there is a season. Now’s the time to eat. We are all connected…