The Slice: Turkey day offers great family beefs

There are only nine weeks until Thanksgiving.

Have you started thinking about how you can maximize family tensions during that holiday?

Well, here are five tactics certain to work.

1. Wait until that day to declare that you have become a militant vegan.

2. Identify the person most sensitive about his or her weight, and comment on how much that individual is eating.

3. Get into the whole day care thing again.

4. Celebrate the outcome of the presidential election by dancing the Funky Chicken.

5. Bring a laptop to the table and make blog entries during dinner.

•Light my fire: With wood-burning season approaching, it’s time to review The Slice’s real-world color coded air-quality alert system.

Green: OK to spew nasty little particles into the air that, when inhaled, travel deep into the lungs and act like microscopic Tasmanian devils in sensitive tissue.

Yellow: OK to produce carbon monoxide and various other interesting toxins.

Orange: Smoke density should not exceed “pea soup” standard.

Pink: Cough and the world coughs with you. Wheeze and you wheeze alone.

Red: Burning ban? As a rugged, independent Westerner, I’m not sure I approve of the government telling me what to do.

Maroon: Some of my best friends are asthmatics.

Black: I’ll give up my matches and petro-log when you pry them from my cold, dead fingers.

•Full disclosure: I love using my fireplace. It’s one of my favorite things about a cold weather climate.

But when the air pollution watchdogs issue an alert, it’s not a joke. So pay attention.

•Today’s Slice question (multiple choice): Let’s face it. Experience with telemarketers, fundraisers and political campaigns has made more than a few of us skeptical about answering the phone at home. Some of us have even adopted a gruff, suspicious vocal tone.

So … What message does your voice convey when you answer calls?

A) “Don’t mess with me.” B) “You’ve got exactly two seconds to demonstrate that you are not selling something.” C) “I’ve done time and am willing to go back.” D) “I am a robot. If you are planning on playing on my emotions, forget it.” E) Couldn’t say. I never answer the phone. F) “I am not going to believe a word you say.” G) “You just woke me up.” H) “Who do I have to strangle to stop these recorded messages in the middle of dinner?” I) “Don’t mistake my calmness for genuine patience. It’s the antidepressants you’re hearing.” J) “Edgy? You’d sound edgy, too, if you had shampoo dripping into your eyes.” K) “My life is sunshine, lollipops and rainbows.” L) “I just hate you.” M) “Dave’s not here.” N) “I was just about to engage in intimate social congress when the phone rang.” O) Other.