I’m thankful for no jerks Thursday

By Kevin Kane

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Now that I’m working as an editor, I’ve read more “What I’m thankful for” columns this week than I’ve ever wanted. I was originally thinking of doing one myself, but I’m so sick of these now that I don’t think I can have any more without getting physically sick. It’s much like the way I’ll actually feel Thanksgiving afternoon. But I got to thinking, does anyone even want to read one of those? Do people really want to read the clichéd, cheesy details of everything going great in someone’s life and their consequential gratitude? Honestly, I don’t — that is, unless it’s something really different. Well, I may have something different. Over the past few weeks, I’ve experienced a few all-out jerks, and honestly, I’m thankful I won’t be around them on Thanksgiving. [ad#single-post] A few weeks ago, I spoke with a rather wealthy young woman at a fundraiser. She remained polite throughout our lengthy conversation, but she did so while repeatedly offending me. As I’ve mentioned multiple times, my girlfriend and I have been together for over five years. Our relationship is real; it isn’t a fling. We have opposite personalities — she’s a major extrovert while I’m an introvert — but it works. But, if you were to ask this lady, I’ve been wasting my time in a relationship that’s going nowhere. My girlfriend and I had only met her three minutes prior, but I guess that’s all it takes to know if it’s destined to last. Screw the five-plus years we’ve been together. Forget that Jess and I have been a couple longer than she and her husband. We’re “too young.” Therefore, it could never last. “I’m not talking about you necessarily,” she’d say as she used specific details I provided her. People my age, she said, are unable to differentiate love from infatuation. Clearly, merely infatuated people, like myself, stick with their significant others while going to opposite universities, driving up each weekend to see them and essentially missing a large chunk of the college experience. While she clearly knows me better than I do myself, I, on the other hand, know next to nothing about her, because she wouldn’t stop talking and cutting me off, but also because she played things pretty close to the cocktail dress. Just trying to make conversation, I asked her where she lived. She gave me the city. “I know,” I said. “I meant where.” Again, I just got the city, as if I was going to stalk her. Once again trying to make conversation, I asked how many fundraisers she attends a year, and I got, “Uh, try a week.” That’s about the time when I left the table. But another incident actually had me sticking around. I was about to leave a fast-food restaurant the other day when a guy came in holding a tattered American flag — the one he took from outside minutes earlier. “This ought to be good,” I thought, so I stuck around and eavesdropped, pretending to read the paper. “Are there any Americans that work here?” he yelled, adding to the two kids next to him that “all of the illegals” working there had taken their jobs. Once the store manager declined the man’s offer to repair the flag for a fee, he threw a tantrum, accusing the U.S. Marine-turned-restaurant manager of ignoring the law and only hiring illegal aliens. Because the customer’s always right, the guy had to play it cool, but no matter how you feel about immigration, the flag thief was clearly a jerk. Of all the things I could go on about being thankful for, somewhere on the list is that, at least for Thanksgiving, I won’t be surrounded by jerks. And that’s a real, from-the-heart column of gratitude. Of course, the jerk-free experience, like Cinderella’s ball, will end at midnight on Nov. 27, because in order to survive Black Friday, you almost have to be a jerk.

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