Roasted, fried, baked in bread,
Fatness, fullness, frosted, fed.
Spread with butter on a roll,
bitten, chewed, swallowed whole
with gravy.
That is your recommended daily allowance of rhyming.
Food is the fulcrum
on which is balanced
the scales of justice.
In that balance is weighed
the soul of our nation.
The great sin of this country is
worthiness trolling.
It's a song and dance and it goes like this:
Somebody, somewhere
misused a SNAP card,
therefore children must die.
You have to urinate in a cup
if you need food stamps,
because junkies must starve.
I am exempt
from charitable giving
because no one
is worthy enough.
The government
is stealing my money
to give it to lazy brown people.
Malnutrition will make you stronger
so hurry up and die already.
Why do you liberals hate Christmas?
To the judges of worthiness, I say
Merry fuck you Christmas.
In case you didn't hear that the first time,
Merry fuck you Christmas.
Fuck you Merry fuck you Christ fuck youmas.
I know a lady named Teri.
She runs a food pantry
where nobody has to pee in a cup.
They fill out some forms
and somebody from the county signs off
and they get a box of free groceries
once a week.
It was about a week after Christmas.
I stopped down to drop off a can of beans.
Teri had heard that my father had died.
She said, "Al, would you mind If I prayed for you?"
I said, I wouldn't mind and thanked her.
I was a bit surprised
when, right there,
she put her arm around me,
took my hand in hers,
and began to pray out loud, off the cuff,
asking Jesus
to give me comfort and heal my grief.
Teri believes that her god will heal me.
I believe that Teri did more
to heal me than any god ever will.
If Jesus was, in fact, present,
he was wearing his Teri mask.
I'd have guessed he was taller.
Teri and her volunteers
give away hundreds of bags of groceries
every week.
They also give away winter coats
and boots
and school supplies.
They don't ask if you are worthy.
They just give you food and politely ask
if you would mind if they could pray for you.
In order to beat the crowds,
today, in October, I wish for Teri,
a Merry Christmas, every day of the year.
And so to everyone like Teri,
whose socks I am not worthy to wash,
I say Merry love you Christmas,
Happy Holidays, happy working days,
happy, love, joy, happy happiness.
And that is fuller, sweeter and tastier than any rhyme I could devise,
with gravy.