How to make someone cry...

...on Thanksgiving.

Oh, there are many ways. It's easy to make relatives cry. Too easy perhaps. It's so much more challenging to make complete strangers cry. I suggest victimizing helpless cashiers at supermarkets, making them stand mute and idle while you reel off a littany of horrible service crimes perpetrated against you, the most important person in the store, until the minimum-wage earner in question begins to silently shake and can no longer hold back the flood of tears.

I saw a wonderful example of this very technique in our local Kroger store on Turkey day. A woman (we will call her Ivanka P. Nutcrusher for purposes of anonymity) came to the check out with a full cart of Thanksgiving crap, waited until it had all been scanned (at least 5 people behind her at this point) and then told the cashier she needed to call her bank to check her balance before she could pay. The cashier then asked the manager to suspend the transaction until I.P. Nutcrusher got her shit together, and then the fun began. First making sure that she was the absolute center of attention, I.P. then listed the myriad ways she had been victimized by the cashier, Kroger, and the military-industrial complex. I timed it. She had the girl in tears inside a minute. Masterful.

Happy Thanksgiving I.P. We salute you.