The pressure is on.  Here comes Thanksgiving and we all know we need to focus on our “thankful list”.  Will we have to recite them around the table?  Or maybe we will be required to write an essay about them.  It’s best to be prepared.  Naturally, we are all thankful for health, freedom, family, friends, the military, and a great turkey.  Those are required thankfuls:  Thankful 101.

It would be blasphemous to talk about bills, unemployment, gas prices, bad knees and the economy on Thanksgiving.  So we won’t go there.

I’ve decided to try and identify more obscure items for which to give thanks…wonderful but mostly overlooked.  Let’s hear it for the things we appreciate but never mention, unless they are missing or malfunctioning.  This list could go on and on… like that Titantic song.

• Envelopes with those peel away papers so you don’t have to lick the glue. Yay!
• Garage door openers.
• Stores that actually carry shoes with wide or narrow widths.  Not many on that list.
• Caller ID!  How did we survive before caller ID?
• Trash cans located near where you open the mail.
• Spell check.
• Geraniums:  the only flower that seems to still thrive on my neglectful ways.
• Disposable roaster pans that you don’t have to clean. (my apologies to environmentalists)
• Prelit Christmas trees.  (See I can be “green”).
• Free long distance.  What exactly were we paying for all those years?
• Stores that stay open 24 hours.
• Remote controls that aren’t missing.
• Cell phones that are missing when I’m trying to have a nice face to face conversation.
• Smiling store clerks.  (They deserve double their weight in blessings.)
• Glue sticks for kindergarten teachers.
• Libraries that email to remind me when my books are due.
• Hotels with free cookies.  Any place with free cookies.
• Stores that don’t ask me to fill out a survey about their service really to get my email address.
• Car seats that warm my toosh in the winter.  I’ve never owned any, but a girl can dream.
• The Do Not Call legislation.  Best work of politicians in a decade.
• Stores that really open all their check out lanes.
• Roomy seats on jets.  Just kidding.
• Money machines.
• People who take the time to read my blog.

                                                     Can you add to my list?