Some things are as boring as the dust that clings to your TV screen.

In my experience, lunch in any school cafeteria is about as exciting as a Tater Tot-flavored coma, with a similar medical aftertaste. When you’re a kid, lunch is a repressed memory and dinner is a valuable Frisbee time.

Food is about as exciting as television dust. In fact, I do not believe that I ate anything at all until I got older and finally discovered In ‘N Out. But even in cases like these, bits of dust are wiped clean. But where were the clean spots in my dull food experience? What protected me from the forces of culinary evil, cooked carrots and mystery meat?

I thank my colonial heroes, those valiant men in high heels for clearing my dust. Every November, I thank the Pilgrims for pillaging through the dirt and discovering a meal worth sitting through, the epitome of all meals: Thanksgiving.

In my family, November is a holiday in itself, from the obsessive collection of canned food that spans for months to the great basting of the turkey that extends the entire week.

But this year, Thanksgiving draws near with a note of pure grief in its merry tune. To my dismal horror, there has been no preparation. Sinfully, no turkey has been slaughtered in my family’s honor! Instead, sitting soggy on the stovetop, smirking at me through its disgusting carved feathers, awaits the loaf of Tofurkey.

What inhuman impulse drove man to sit in his kitchen and, lost in heavenly visions of stuffing and pie, decide to carve a turkey shape out of nasty, ancient tofu? I would rather eat those Tater Tots and coleslaw than suffer through the Tofurkey disaster my “health-conscious” aunt has planned for me.

Quite frankly, I have had mediocre Tofurkey, and I have had old bike-tire Tofurkey, and no matter how much the mess resembles a friendly hand puppet, I will never be a fan. In fact, I’m sure that at least half of the ingredients include squirrel and concrete, so if you’re really trying to be healthy, carve a turkey out of a carrot instead of an old bath sponge.

So given my situation, what is there left to be thankful for? Instead of happily sleeping through a traumatic family reunion, my prescription for a turkey sleep aid has been cancelled. I have been forced into a horrifying conundrum of misery, conscious, unsatisfied and forced to interact with the entire Larsen clan. My dust has been splattered with Tofurkey muck.