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Doug Clark: Professor Pilgrim says skip the cold cuts this Thanksgiving

Doug Clark (Colin Mulvany / SR)

Whataya get when you cross a turkey with a banjo?

A bird that can pluck itself.

Welcome, ladies and gents. It’s time for the 10th annual installment (give or take) of Ask Professor Pilgrim – the only Thanksgiving advice column specifically referenced in Hillary Clinton’s illegal top-secret emails.

Before the professor starts pontificating, he’s been asked to remind everybody of the forthcoming closures:

Postal drop-offs. Garbage pickups. Shar Lichty’s political future.

OK. Let the enlightenment begin.

Q: I’ve invited the Morlocks, my poor neighbors who’ve been living in the cold and dark since the windstorm hit last week, over for Thanksgiving. Any thoughts on what I should serve them?

Prof. Pilgrim: It doesn’t really matter as long as the first course involves a hot shower.

Q: Doesn’t the menu count?

Prof. Pilgrim: Well, I’d probably skip the cold cuts.

Q: Any ideas on how to keep the Thanksgiving table talk from devolving into one windstorm horror story after another?

Prof. Pilgrim: Start telling your ice storm ’96 horror stories.

Q: What if I wasn’t around for ice storm?

Prof. Pilgrim: Keep the wine flowing. After a half-hour, nobody will care if you start making up Korean War horror stories.

Q: Speaking of the windstorm, what do you think of that “Inland Strong” slogan I heard some people using?

Prof. Pilgrim: Melodramatic crap.

Q: You have a better windstorm slogan?

Prof. Pilgrim: “Spokane Blows!” works.

Q: Really?

Prof. Pilgrim: How about “Welcome to Blowkane?”

Q: Really crass, Professor.

Prof. Pilgrim: Thank you.

Q: I’m betting you didn’t lose any power during the windstorm, did you?

Prof. Pilgrim: True, the Avista gods were kind to Professor Pilgrim. But he still suffered hardships unimaginable.

Q: How so?

Prof. Pilgrim: My cable TV and Internet were deader than Rod Serling until Sunday night. Couldn’t even watch the Seahawks game.

Q: That’s your idea of hardships?

Prof. Pilgrim: – Worse. It’s a Comcastrophe!

Q: You stole that line from one of your sophomoric pals, didn’t you?

Prof. Pilgrim: I must invoke the Fifth.

Q: Amendment?

Prof. Pilgrim: Glenlivet.

Q: I’m thinking of inviting Mayor David Condon over for Thanksgiving dinner. Think he’d come?

Prof. Pilgrim: He’ll come running like Spokane cops to a drunken party.

Q: What makes you so sure?

Prof. Pilgrim: After getting his salary cut 6 percent, Boy Mayor will do anything for a free slice of pie.

Q: Planning anything unusual this Thanksgiving?

Prof. Pilgrim: Thanks to the fascinating ad I saw in Friday’s Spokesman-Review, I decided to do all my shopping at Sativa Sisters in Spokane Valley.

Q: Wait a minute! That’s a pot store. What are you getting there?

Prof. Pilgrim: To quote from the ad, “$20 eighths. Prerolled joints. Buds & More!”

Q: What sort of holiday are you planning for?

Prof. Pilgrim: “Happy Danksgiving!” as the ad exclaims.

Q: You realize a lot of our more refined readers don’t know what “dank” means, don’t you?

Prof. Pilgrim: They will if they drop by the Pilgrim household.

Q: Shame on you, Professor. Since when have you been a stoner?

Prof. Pilgrim: Don’t knock it until you’ve smoked some of my herbal stuffing.

Q: Just what does Thanksgiving mean to you, Professor?

Prof. Pilgrim: Payback for those wild turkey herds that have been leaving greasy black deposits all over Spokane yards.

Q: Really?

Prof. Pilgrim: Well, Thanksgiving also celebrates that special time when the Pilgrims and the space aliens shared grain and food that the Egyptians stored in their giant pyramids.

Q: And where’d you get a revisionist nut-ball notion like that?

Prof. Pilgrim: “The History of the World,” by Dr. Ben Carson.

Doug Clark is a columnist for The Spokesman-Review. He can be reached at (509) 459-5432 or by email at dougc@spokesman.com.

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