Can you believe it’s already the afternoon of Brown Friday Eve Day Eve? Yes tomorrow is Thanksgiving, and all over the United States of America everyone except Judas from “Jesus Christ Superstar” (charged with trying to overthrow the government) and Jeffrey Epstein (who “definitely killed himself“ according to his jail neighbor who heard him “tearing up his sheet”) will sit down with relatives they don’t like, to eat a meal they don’t like. During a sudden lull in the conversation someone will say “did you hear Will Smith used to throw up every time he had an orgasm?” and that probably won’t even be the most awkward moment of the day.
The most awkward moment might be when your Aunt Kari from Indianapolis starts doing gematria at you to prove that JFK Jr. is coming back from the dead to run as Donald Trump’s VP in 2024. Or it might be when Granny Sharon tells you about the time a reptilian who claimed to be Xerxes (accompanied by halfling gargoyles) took the form of her husband Derek and tried to have sex with her, while her actual non-lizard husband Derek sits right there looking more glazed than the carrots and occasionally nodding in Christian Extremist.
Later, as you pick salami rounds off the roof of the traditional Thanksgiving charcuterie house, your cousin who is on permanent disability leave from his job at a shoe store will tell you he made $750,000 this year in crypto. Neither Stephen Diehl’s outstanding explanation that crypto is a “Handwavy Technobabble Nothingburger” which (like a burner phone for a political rally organizer) is only good for doing crimes, nor Tom Lee’s assertion that “the promise of crypto will prove to be a sham” (in response to Will Wilkinson’s optimism) will make that news feel any better. For God’s sake don’t let him talk you into buying anything, that is literally how Ponzi schemes work. Try telling him that Mr. Goxx the crypto-trading hamster died, he won’t have any idea what you’re talking about because he is a baby, a literal infant, who hasn’t seen the things you’ve seen. He merely adopted the dark. You were born in it. Molded by it.
And good luck convincing your uncle, a union electrician for 35 years who has never paid a penny in health insurance premiums but who somehow still hates the labor movement like cats hate cucumbers, to respect the Wirecutter Black Friday strike. He would normally rather die than pay a penny to the New York Times (and you’re not even positive he can read?) but he will instantly take A.G. Sulzberger’s side of this dispute, even if you tell him how many Gritty emoji reactions Choire said that Times head of standalone products David Perpich’s Slack message about it earned, which was 12, as of this morning. But your cool cousin, you know, the one with the hair? She’ll be listening and quietly nodding and you know she knows that you know. So it’s still cool.
If all else fails, you can just talk about the business news, which is: Jerbs, but not stonks.
If you’re not American, tomorrow probably doesn’t mean anything in particular to you, and as geography teaches us, you’re from New Zealand (TKTK insert map proving this). So here’s another:
“Possum Released Without Charges After Holding Woman Hostage,” reports Vice’s Gabriel Geiger, about a Dunedin woman’s harrowing encounter with the “Blacks Road ripper,” a brushtail possum whose real name turned out to be Mr. Scoby Lunchbox.
And in Palmerston North, Jacob Lister suffered a bad haircut. “It took just moments for all the hair to be chopped off.” This story is funny but also a real bummer. Don’t be like this terrible hairdresser.
Today’s Song: Erlend Øye, “La Prima Estate” (thanks to J from the Discord)
~ The road to tabs is paved with good intentions. ~
I keep forgetting to mention it but I tweet @fka_tabs and @TodayinTabs. Instead of that extra slice of pumpkin pie, why not grab a subscription? It gets you every post (including Fridays), and access to a Discord full of people who are cool but not coooool, you know what I mean? You’d like it. And heck, go ahead and have that pie anyway, it does look good and you deserve it. Tomorrow I’m serving you all a delicious Thanksgiving dinner, and Friday Heather Havrilesky returns for Today in Polly 3.