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Stupid pilgrims. Thanks to them, we have Thanksgiving.

I don't mean the actual feeling of gratitude for the positive elements of our lives. That's a good thing. But it wasn't started by the #*&@* pilgrims.

All cultures have had a special day to celebrate their gratitude, whether it was cavorting abut a maypole, longwinded prayers, offering up some valuable item or yanking the hearts out of a couple thousand people.

Personally, I don't need a special day or a meal to be thankful that I found a woman willing to marry below her station, that my daughters are married to good men, and that I have a job that *requires* me to be a miscreant.

It's Thanksgiving dinner I blame on the pilgrims, for setting the traditional meal of roasted fowl, cranberries, corn, mashed potatoes and assorted side dishes that have become so essential that their absence — or deviation in preparation — is seen as a manifestations of mental illness.

"What do you mean you forgot the candied yams this year? We always have yams. It isn't Thanksgiving without yams and tiny marshmallows. Kids, get your coats. We're leaving. This woman is not your grandmother anymore."

Note: Yeah, I know the pilgrims didn't have candied yams. Just go with it.

What really annoys me about the pilgrims is that they set the historical table for last-minute errands. In the 24 hours leading up to the moment of actually sitting down to eat a turkey dinner, no fewer than 31 trips to the grocery store are required.

My wife and I came to an agreement years ago. She cooks. I clean up. I also run to the store to get whatever she needs or forgot.

On Wednesday and early Thursday, I had to go out only five times. I was sent for cranberries, vegetable oil, assorted spices, yeast, and a new turkey baster because I used the one we had to clean a Sharps rifle.

During these errands, I muttered to myself until I actually created a new holiday. I call it Unthankful Giving, or the day after Thanksgiving. It's a full day of celebrating all the things for which I'm completely ungrateful.

Mosquitoes, the federal government, broccoli, cannon misfires, tax season, rats, TV commercials, disc jockeys who talk over the music, Sunday school, black ice, seagulls, barking dogs, meetings, Sonny stopping for roadkill that's been dead more than three days, and the bully who chipped my front tooth in the fourth grade (her name was Nancy).

Those are just a few. I got more, but you get the point. Life is full of $*#@ we shouldn't have to be thankful for regardless of how many bliss ninnies say we should.

I agree that Unthankful Giving Day shouldn't make Thanksgiving Day less enjoyable, but it seems to me and every other sensible person that there ought to be a special day to denounce all that stuff that makes us miserable. Sometimes the two go hand-in-hand.

For example, there's going to the can in the middle of the night and stepping on a Peppa Pig toy that the most beautiful 2-year-old granddaughter in the world left in the hallway.

But as I wrote this on Unthankful Giving Day (Friday), the gods sent me a message. I was sitting at my computer complaining when a 3.2 magnitude earthquake rattled my office. Nobody got hurt.

Sometimes you need a warning to realize that there's a limit to being unthankful.

Robert Kirby can be reached at rkirby@sltrib.com or facebook.com/stillnotpatbagley.