Thanksgiving Gets Underway

One of the things I learned this weekend was that there is an actual name for my brother's job. He is a media planner. I'm even starting to understand what that is. Of course, I also learned that he is a big racist as far as people with brown skin in service positions are concerned, but that's another story.

My brother loves free crap. Now, I enjoy free stuff, but if it's crap, I'd rather say "No thanks," and just keep walking. Not my brother. He'll take two and figure out how he can regift the crap later. This new job is working out great for him because he gets to attend conferences and trade shows where big companies not only wine and dine and entertain my brother, they also hand out a lot of free crap. The kid couldn't be happier. When I got to his apartment, one of the first things he wanted to do was show me all the crap he collected. "Hey," he said. "Check out my new clockulator."

Now, a "clockulator" is part digital clock, part calculator, and of course, like all the other free crap, is branded with with some jackass company's logo. I started laughing hysterically to see how excited LittleBrother was about this turd and also becuase I thought "clockulator" was the most ridiculous word he had ever come up with.

"Clockulator??" I guffawed. "That's the stupidest thing I've ever heard."

"What? " said my brother, looking hurt. "That's what it's called. 'Free clockulator sir?'"

"What??!! Someone actually approached you and asked, 'Free clockulator, sir?'"

"Yes."

"No! Stop! You're killing me!!" I screamed.

"You're killing me!!" he yelled, pointing to the wad of used Kleenex I had left on his kitchen counter. Then he went on to show me the Coffee Mug warmer that plugs into a USB port that he was planning on regifting to our Father for Christmas. It was branded with a major Internet search engine. After that, I let my eyes glaze over and I went to my happy place as he showed me scores upon scores of penlights and keychains.