Thanksgiving California style

I love being a native Californian. With this oh-so important label, I can proudly claim that we are the forerunners to killing Thanksgiving. Claremont kindergartners for years have been celebrating Thanksgiving by dressing up in Pilgrim and Indian costumes made out of construction paper. However, a mother decided that this practice is racist and demeaning, and must be stopped at once.

"It's demeaning," Michelle Raheja, an English professor at UC Riverside and the mother of one of the kindergartners. "I'm sure you can appreciate the inappropriateness of asking children to dress up like slaves (and kind slave masters), or Jews (and friendly Nazis), or members of any other racial minority group who has struggled in our nation's history."

She had the balls to meet with teachers and administrators in hopes that the district could discuss alternatives to celebrate T-giving without "dehumanizing" her daughter's ancestry.

"There is nothing to be served by dressing up as a racist stereotype," she said.

Racist stereotype? Is this woman kidding me? This sort of thing just makes my eyelids invert. Only in California do we derail an entire tradition based on one freaking lib honk. with a liberal agenda. What's worse is the school district is considering canceling the event or having the kids dress up in their spirit shirts rather than dress up in the costumes because "we all have to be sensitive and respect our diversity."

Screw that. If my kids were still small, I'd yank their little butts out of public school immediately. I'd give them a real education and teach them about our history because God knows the schools are dumbing our kids down. Dumb people equal easier manipulation.

Personally, I'd like to reenact another moment in history; the Boston Tea Party.

Cell phone cellulitis

So what gives, Sprint, you used to make such great cell phones back in the day. But the last three phones I’ve had suck stale Twinkie cream. My last one sucked so much that I gave it to my secretary, the unreliable beagle, who promptly made lascivious calls to the police department and ordered frozen margaritas to go from the taco joint down the road. I gave it to her because the damn thing never worked!

You told me there wasn’t anything you could do for me, so against my better judgment, I got sucked into buying the LG Rumor. For the first four months it worked like a dream. My fingers flew over that big ol’ keyboard, and I could easily see the letters to ask my daughter to bring home a quart of milk and chocolate.

But, alas, our love affair soured. I’ve lost count of the times this agent of hell has shut off in mid-text and mid-phone call. Two, three, four times a day, I have to power up this demon after receiving land line calls from my mother wondering if I’d lost my cell phone. I wish.

Sprint, I’ve been a customer of yours for over ten years. Is my happiness nothing to you? I kept my old cell phone when others were getting the cool colored phones with all the bells and whistles because it never gave me a moment of worry. But all bets were off when you came out with a red phone. You found my weakness, and soon I was too cool for school. My love affair with that phone lasted four days. I brought it in to you, and one of your minions said, “Oh yeah…the red one. It has a defect.”

A defect? And yet you sold it to me? I traded in my ancient phone that never gave me a second of worry or problems for a defect? The replacement phone was ok, only it sounded like everyone was under water. But gawd, was it cute. A metallic pink. I couldn’t hear worth a damn, but I looked sooo cute holding it. The next one fell apart in my hands one day while I was talking to an agent.

I miss the good old days when your phones lasted. Back then you had to make a quality product because that was all you had. Nowadays you come out with a new phone every five minutes, and the buyers come running, so who cares about quality anymore?

“Oh, fierce green, it’s soooo cute!”
“Omigod, look at the videos it takes, and it’s PINK!”
This has a calendar that beeps at you, that one has special ring tones, oooo, and that one over there gets my email! AND NONE OF THEM FUCKING WORK.

I can’t leave you, Sprint, because I signed that pesky little contract. You know; the one where it says you can take my firstborn and half my savings if I dare leave you. So you’ve sold out for the quick, easy buck. Quality has become as obsolete as customer service. Maybe I’m just getting old, but I remember customer service quite fondly. It was a business’ calling card. Make the customer happy, and they’ll keep coming back. But you, Sprint, traded customer service for a contract, so I’m your customer and you don’t even have to smile and tell me to have a nice day. You can give me a crap piece of hardware in a pretty package and let me talk to India when I have a problem

I’d call you to complain, but my phone just shut off. Again.