Be nice to your wife day

My sweet wife has just informed me that this being the Canadian Thanksgiving weekend, which we had to change the calendar back from November to verify, it is consequently be nice to your wife day. I really wonder what she wants, she can be pretty sneaky. On asking her what being nice would entail she changed the subject so I don't know if she just lost her train of thought or if this is the great Thanksgiving complot, the one where the husband buys the turkey and all the trimmings and spends all weekend in the kitchen slaving away over a hot stove to serve up a platters of delicious grub topped with pumpkin pie and ice cream. Oh joy, I just asked her again what being nice might entail and on finding out that she had not yet told me, she says “eating out” would be nice. I am saved! No slaving away in the hot kitchen for this dude.

Yes, here in the great white north of Cananada brrr we hold our Thanksgiving on the second Monday of October because by the fourth Thursday of November we are frozen in for the winter, buried in snow, with two whole hours of daylight each day, and no-one's car would start anyway for the ensuing Black Friday. And by that time we're not that thankful about anything much except that spring is only six months away.

We are back, tummies full of McDonald's chewy fish burgers, but this be nice to your wife day also involved some treats from the supermarket, and all the displays reminded her that it was Thanksgiving and by the time she reached the checkout her basket was overflowing with Halloween treats and cranberries and boxes of stuffing and fancy pickles and a pumpkin pie and I had to dig out my stash of hidden twenties to cover the tab. I asked her what she was going to do with all the good food and she just handed it to me with her big smile. My guess is I will still be slaving away over a hot stove this weekend. And what's more she got on the phone and invited her two good friends over for tomorrow. I'm doomed.

Ah the great white north. We are sincerely thankful that our Prime Minister Stevie Harper in his neocon wisdom can trade off a little slice of democratic freedom for some distributive equality so us retired dead weights can lavishly celebrate this occasion with our buds to contemplate his demise. Be nice to your wife today, eh!