Doug Clark: Professor Pilgrim weighs in on turnips, herbs and Apple bashes

Cover your giblets, ladies and germs. It’s time for another edition of America’s favorite Thanksgiving Day advice column: Ask Professor Pilgrim.

Before the professor starts addressing your concerns, we’ll take a moment like we always do to announce the following holiday closures:

Well, whataya know.

A rafter of money-grubber merchants is keeping the doors open on Thanksgiving this year.

Oh, wait a minute. There is one closure.

But everyone already knows about the Obamacare website tomfoolery.

So let the answering begin …

Q: By my calculations, this is the eighth year of Ask Professor Pilgrim. Any secret to explain such longevity?

A: No secret at all. It boils down to my three main attributes.

Q: Which are?

A: Sloth, fatigue and a chronic lack of ambition.

Q: For which we are all grateful. But let’s get back to Thanksgiving.

A: It’s about time.

Q: Half my dinner guests this year are rabid Cougar fans. The other half love the Huskies. Any advice on how to keep Apple Cup arguments from spoiling Thanksgiving?

A: Placing a chicken wire fence down the middle of the table should do the trick.

Q: It should stop the insults?

A: No. But it should stop the beer bottles that Wazzu football fans tend to start tossing whenever they get drunk.

Q: I heard that blustery weather could affect the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day parade this year. Is that true?

A: Yes. In fact, parade organizers already had to pull the Paula Deen float.

Q: Paula Deen has her own float?

A: It’s the really large one wearing a sheet.

Q: That’s a truly insensitive joke, Professor Pilgrim.

A: Why, thank you. Before we go any farther I’d like to give a shout-out to my pal Tom Sherry, the KREM-TV weather dude.

Q: Good idea. His annual Tom’s Turkey Drive brought in 11,000 turkey dinners this year. That’s amazing, huh?

A: Yes it is. I’m just glad that we all talked him out of the original charity idea he had.

Q: What was that?

A: Tom’s Turnip Drive.

Q: Yeah, nobody would have backed that one. By the way, Professor, do you have any thoughts on the perfect stuffing?

A: Sandra Bullock in that white dress she’s wearing on the cover of the latest “Entertainment Weekly” isn’t half-bad.

Q: No. Not that kind of stuffing. I meant: What’s your idea of the perfect turkey stuffing?

A: Well, any recipe will be a winner if it has enough of the right herb.

Q: Rosemary?

A: No. Mary Jane. You know, the herb Washington voters legalized.

Q: You’re saying you put pot in the turkey stuffing?

A: Professor Pilgrim has been known to put pot in his banana cream pie filling.

Q: But won’t that ruin the taste?

A: Perhaps. But it definitely makes the family a whole lot easier to tolerate.

Q: Speaking of dinner guests, what accommodations should I make for the vegetarians or vegans who show up?

A: The L&S method never fails.

Q: L&S?

A: “Lie and Serve,” if you must know.

Q: Are you saying you lie to your vegetarian guests about what they’re eating?

A: Sure. There’s nothing funnier than seeing a vegetarian scarf up the tofu (sausage) gravy.

Q: But what about the turkey?

A: Most people overcook their bird so much that it looks more like an old tire than meat.

Q: Point taken. But what if eating it makes a vegetarian sick?

A: Aw, nobody’s ever died from the turkey trots.

Q: How can you live with yourself, professor?

A: Easy if you’ve got enough pie filling.