GIVING THANKS: BEYOND MUNGLERDOME
HAPPY DAY, YOU COB-GOBBLING TURDUCKENS!
Alex, you’re really dropping that level of garbage right from the top? ALEX YOU’RE ALREADY IN THIRD PERSON?!
Gentlemens! Welcome back to being confused/amused/concerned for your friend as you read his brain spill out for the next 16-or so-minutes while you sit on the toilet, avoiding family activities, before the most gluttonous-yet-contentious family feast of the year.
ARE YOU SICK OF THIS YET?! I SURE AM!
In honor of our Glorious Celebration of Graciousness and Turkey Sacrifice, let’s have Thanksgiving together.
SETTLING IN
Remember in college when you used to wake up on this morning with a vicious hangover because you were out all night on The Wednesday trying to sleep with Nostalgia, aka that girl you had a crush on in high school but weren’t confident enough to talk to until you spent a semester away from home and learned “how to drink” at college and now you’re catching eyes with her at the local bar — she's a little chubbier and you’re blitzed drunk — and you think “THIS IS MY MOMENT” so you walk up and say something she can’t hear over the noise of the bar and she says “Uh, what?!” so like a quick-witted gentleman you start gyrating your hips in response and somehow that saves the conversation and before you know it you’re making out with her in your dingy hometown bar’s bathroom and just as she begins to undo your belt and you say “maybe we should go somewhere,” she smiles and then proceeds to projectile vomit down your pants? Just me?
Our entry to Fall Fam-Con is a little different these days. Most of you have spouses and babies, or at least dogs. The conversations are different. The expectations are different. We’re adults.
And with that, comes my new favorite tradition: watching the younger members of the pack display the poorest of decision-making for my personal entertainment.
This year, I went to Baltimore to hang with family I haven’t spent the holiday with in 15+ years. As we waited for everyone to arrive for dinner last night, one of my cousins got a text from her 28-year-old brother saying he was “bringing a date, Mom knows” to the surprise of everyone, including said Mom. Just last year he had broke off an engagement with a girl he had been with for 8 years that everyone loved. The family is still in mourning.
Soon after they arrived, his new mystery-ess revealed that they have been dating long-distance for over a year, AND, just this Saturday, she left her trailer park in a rural Southern Kentucky town, got on a plane for the first time, and moved in with him in Baltimore. No job, no plan, no shit. Charm City, baby!
Jewish mothers everywhere gasped. Wine was drunk, tears were cried. THIS IS NOT WHAT MY BUBBALA IS SUPPOSED TO DO WITH HIS LIFE!
And then, straight from the script of a shitty sitcom, another relative telling an ill-timed joke in the kitchen, yelled out “I’M NOT WHITE TRASH ANYMORE!” and my new favorite member of the family cackled back “AMEN TO THAT!” in her thick Kentuckian drawl.
God, I love Thanksgiving.
DRINKS & SNACKS
Three Fun Games to Play with Your Relatives!
1. Share your new favorite health and wellness tips!
2. Find the Fascist!
Blue State Edition: Begin a conversation with “I know Trump rubs some people the wrong way, BUT…” and wait to see who finishes that sentence with a sense of pride and/or white power.
Red State Edition: Turn on High Hopes by Panic! At the Disco and see how many of your libtard cousins break into choreographed dance.
3. Go on The Walk with a college-aged cousin. Once sufficiently high, tell him/her that you need to confide in them… that you have something serious you need to get off your chest. Tell them you made a mistake at a work event over the summer… you accidentally got a co-worker pregnant and she is insisting on keeping the baby but has vowed to keep it all a secret. Ask for advice. Explain that you’ve had a really hard couple of months and haven’t been able to share it with anyone, but tonight, at dinner, you’re going to come clean to everyone in the family. Then have dinner, never bring it up, and watch their stoned brain implode with high anxiety.
GRACE
Dear Sweet Baby Yoda, thank you for this bountiful feast of the blandest of birds, full of awkward silences, uncomfortable political tension, and slightly too much alcohol for Aunt Renee. Praise thee for bring us together in rare opportunity yet providing acceptable excuses for passing out in sweatpants at 4pm.
Thank you Adorable Baby Yoda for internet memes, idiotic videos and the unfiltered frustration provided by Yahoo Fantasy Football that distracts us from a world that is burning with rage and stupidity. Even in an Age of Information you have offered so many ways to confuse the masses and disguise the fact that we’ve been living in a revolving door Feudalist society in which the wealthiest build off the backs of the perpetually disenfranchised and feast on the souls of the poor while smiling to our faces and selling us Made-in-China dreams of a better life.
And thank you Bite Size Baby Yoda for The Munglerdome. Never has there been a collection of such simultaneously brilliant and shamefully silly boyz. The Silliest Boyz. May you please protect us from having our audio, video, and written recordings come back to cancel us all.
Praise the Twentieth Day of December in this Year of the Lord, for He shall Rise and Walk the Sky.
May the Force Be With You.
**And With You**
MAIN COURSE
Recaps have truly been a thing of wonder this year. From foul-mouthed-musicals and multimedia presentations, to wire-tapped phone calls, special guest columns, self-help guides and incoherent ramblings from the truly completely unstable member of our league. We have embraced our deepest mange and breathed new life in the meaning of The Munglerdome.
As you might be able to tell from my record, I lost interest in my team weeks ago. I’ve experienced a unique compound fracture of my soul watching Carson Wentz ruin both my fantasy and football fandom this season. It’s truly been a joy. Football has provided nothing but disappointment for the last 4 months and I’m jealous of Andy’s dedication to ignoring the NFL’s miserable politics and product and of Joey for not just committing to being a front-runner from a young age. But is it really too late? Fuck it, I’m a Ravens fan now.
In fact, based on the recaps I’ve read, it appears no one has been paying attention to much happening in this league. But now that season is boiling down, let’s take a quick peek at how things are likely to play out:
Joey has once again lived up to his inimitable ability to gift us a terrible player name pun and garbled word salad recaps from foreign countries. Except, this year, he is rostering the best fantasy teams we’ve ever seen in the history of this league. Will the Commish finally take home the trophy? As the great Stephen F. Austin once said: “You don’t want this smoke.”
Lane is in the running and spouting off his hot garbage takes per usual. “Daddy” - as he now calls himself to all of our discomfort - is inevitably going to find his way into the championship game only to lose in some sort of ridiculous tie-breaker scenario that no one except the programmer of the Yahoo Fantasy app is even aware of. YOU DID THIS. YOU SLEEP IN THE BED OF SHIT YOU MADE.
Jon and Noah’s team’s have enjoyed a remarkably similar season of slightly above average performance. Noah complains a lot and will probably get close but fail — as is tradition — but I can’t get behind his team (even if he did record about an hour worth of blackmail on me just last week). I’m pretty sure Jon has never been remotely close to good at fantasy football so I’m rooting for him in this god-forsaken Year of Yahoo*.
I finally met Dustin at the beginning of this year. I had a nice Hangout with the Rodriguez Bros. during the draft. I got to hang with Louis, the Suavest kid in Steel City. And to be honest, I’m glad the rest of you weren’t there. It was a wonderful evening free of your mindless drivel. I would have such nice things to say about Dustin, except he decided to SLANDER my physique in his recap. No, I didn’t forget. Instead, I got RIPPED. My pecs are stronger than the sense of impending doom I experience every time I meet one of Mike’s new girlfriends. Okay… that’s not true. I am a piece of veal. But fuck you anyway, Dustin. [INSERT IGNORANT JOKE HERE].
Evaluating the next handful of teams’ odds requires too much math and I just don’t care enough. So let me just say this: Jake, I miss you and we’re overdue for a completely unplanned run in. Your a lovely man but your team is probably gonna get screwed out of a playoff spot by a tie. Phil, not only did I NOT delete your Brown Eyed Cherry Popping performance, I listen it to it a bit too often. It’s glorious and troubling. You are far and away the most insane person I know and you manage to hide it very well. Don’t ever change. Steve, you’re gonna steal a playoff spot with that tie but you need some joy in your Toledo-based life so good for you. Danny, your team deserves so much better.
Fuck you, Mike.
Once again Uncle Sori and I are facing off in the Dumpster Bitch Bowl. A side bet was made. The loser (winner?) will be wearing literal shit to next year’s draft party.
SIDE DISHES
Fun Fact: I’m the only Mungler in League History to Compete in THREE Championship Games and THREE Dumpster Bitch Bowls. Proof that nothing makes sense and who gives a shit.
The Macy’s Thanksgiving Day parade is Mardi Gras for White People.
Did anyone read this far?
Why would they? Why do you do this, Alex? Is this entertaining for you? You’re a thirty-five-year-old-man.
I am so lonely.
DESSERT
This is a real Bumble message I received:
Please look our for our save the date in the coming weeks.