Please forgive me; I know it’s the week we’re all supposed to stop and give thanks, but I, for one, have a few burrs in my proverbial saddle and I’ll be dadburned if I’ll let a national holiday deter me from getting a few things off my chest.

If it weren’t for my job, I would never again attend a Christmas parade in Ahoskie. For starters, it comes way too early for my personal taste. I just can’t get into the holiday spirit in 70-plus degree weather on the Saturday before Thanksgiving.

Don’t get me wrong, there were some beautiful, seasonal-themed floats – Bearfield Primary, Center Grove Baptist, Elm Grove Baptist, University Health Systems, Roanoke-Chowan Community College, just to name a few. But there’s no holiday music. Other than Hertford County Middle School, none of the bands that passed by where I was standing played anything, unless one counts the beat of the drums.

Move the parade to December; teach the bands a few Christmas songs and stop ruining my life!

It is just me, or has then entire world gone completely off its collective rocker when it comes to medical &uot;conditions?&uot; I mean, come on, does everything now have to be a condition, or a disease, or better yet, a syndrome?

When I was growing up, there was something known as heartburn. We’d grab a 25-cent pack of Tums and wait a few hours for the pain to cease. Now we have Acid Reflux Disease. We run to the pharmacy and get our high-priced Prozac prescription refilled so we can gain some relief from those six, spicy bean burritos we just shoved into our pie holes.

And what gives with ADD (Attention Deficit Disorder)? When I was a child, it was called being a kid, being mischievous. Now we have 10 million kids addicted to Ritalin. Instead of facing reality that it’s just a kid going through the normal cycle of growing up, we shove a pill down their throat and send them to their room.

Again, this is just a case where the world moves at such a fast pace that we can’t get a grip on reality. When we refer to a garbage man as a sanitation engineer or call a gas station attendant a petroleum transfer technician, we’ve lost touch with reality.

I didn’t know until just recently that obesity was a disease. I’m fat and I know it, but I don’t think I caught this &uot;disease&uot; because another fat person sneezed in my direction. No, mine comes from way too many double cheeseburgers, pork chops smothered in gravy and consuming a mountain of french fries. There is a cure for this disease. My dad made the medical discovery of &uot;push-aways&uot; – getting enough to eat and then pushing away from the supper table instead of pigging out on second and third helpings.

Have you heard the latest from those zany folks associated with PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals)? Seems they’re disgruntled (go figure) with fishermen. Their latest tirade is aimed at fishing equipment – calling it a &uot;weapon&uot; aimed at killing these poor little critters that swim, sleep and poop in the water.

PETA claims it’s unethical to catch fish with sharp barbed hooks as they will leave scars if the fish is returned to the water. What’s up with that? Honestly, did you think that, under the murky waters, the unscathed fish are making jokes about the ones with scars? Is there such as thing as an underwater circus where, for a small fee, a fish can enter a sideshow featuring another fish that talks out of his belly where a hook once penetrated the skin?

Hey, they’re fish, meaning they are way down on the food chain. We catch ’em, we eat ’em. I say we should eat them before they have a chance to do the same to us. Think about it – if we fell overboard and drowned, would the fish not be presented with an opportunity for a meal? Sure they would. They’d pick our carcasses clean as a whistle.

Okay, I’ve ranted enough for one day. I’m sorry if I’ve ruined your Thanksgiving spirit, but be sure to stay tuned because I’ll be sure to rant and rave in the future about the over-commercialization of Christmas, which, by the way, is one month from today. Have you finished your shopping.? If not, I fail to see the reason why because all the major retail outlets have had their Christmas stuff out since way before Halloween!