THANKSGIVING???

"And don't tell me God works in mysterious ways," Yossarian continued. … "There's nothing mysterious about it, He's not working at all. He's playing. Or else He's forgotten all about us. That's the kind of God you people talk about, a country bumpkin, a clumsy, bungling, brainless, conceited, uncouth hayseed. Good God, how much reverence can you have for a Supreme Being who finds it necessary to include such phenomena as phlegm and tooth decay in His divine system of Creation? What in the world was running through that warped, evil, scatological mind of His when He robbed old people of the power to control their bowel movements? Why in the world did He ever create pain?"

Last Thanksgiving, I had an intellectual conversation with Lieutenant Scheisskopf's wife about God. She was as good as an atheist as me, but she still thinks there is a great deal that we have to be thankful for. Well, I definitely object. There's nothing in life to be thankful for. For every good part of life, a bad part counters it. God could have made this world a hell of a lot better, but he didn't. He made this crap we call the world. If your're happy that you're healthy, you should be bitter that you aren't going to stay that way. If you're glad you are alive, you should be furious that you're eventually going to die. Oh, I'm certainly happy he created pain. He could have used a doorbell or a choir of angels to notify us for doing something that involves pain. Rather than rewarding us with this life, God created this torturous line full of agony and danger. I would rather be dead than be alive in this world. Scheisskopf's wife soon got extremely mad at me, eventually crying and beating my head with her fists, saying that the god she didn't believe in was a good and merciful God, not the mean and stupid one I thought he was. That Thanksgiving sure was illogical. But this Thanksgiving, when I was pretending to b dying, so I could be in the hospital, my parents and brother came to see me. It was gruesome, as I had to lie to them, while they called me Giuseppe instead of Yossarian and talked about the fact that I was going to die very soon. My father said when I would talk to God in heaven, I should tell him that is isn't right for people to die so young. My brother said I shouldn't let anybody push me around in heaven because I was as good as them even though I was Italian. My mother said to dress warm. It truly was one of the saddest Thanksgivings i had experienced.

Written by Captain Yossarian