Yesterday, despite having what the doctor at the Urgent Care Center later described as, “possibly early pneumonia”, I went with my husband to vote. Our polling place is a local elementary school, and as we walked down the main corridor we saw a bulletin board celebrating the upcoming holidays.
This particular layout was dedicated to Thanksgiving. It was covered in traditional browns and oranges with a three-dimensional turkey in the center surrounded by paper plates, as if to resemble a table set for the big holiday meal. All of the paper plates had words written on them, instead of representations of food. Three of the plates had words you’d expect to find on a elementary school’s holiday bulletin board, things like “food”, “family”, and “fun”. But the fourth plate? The fourth plate was what made me stop dead in my tracks because on it was written the word, (and I swear I am not making this up), “DIABETES”.
Because nothing brings families together or says “Happy Thanksgiving!” like a shared fear that enjoying your favorite holiday meal will lead to an irreversible destruction of your body’s ability to produce and manage its own insulin.
elementary school is so interesting like that. My favorite is when they bring in family pictures and you see things like uncle morry passed out drunk or the yard littered with old cars on blocks and dog poop…..
I hear ya on the diabetes thing. Some kid is gonna read his parents the riot act this Thanksgiving about all the triptofan (sp?) and saturated fat and carbohydrates, and they’ll just stare at the little guy in wonder.
And we question why so many kids are on prozac and ritalin. You dump the dangers of diabetes on a third grader and he’s going to start to worry, you know?
That’s funny, but in a sad sick sort of way. Of course, we shouldn’t gorge like that every day but once–to give thanks for the fact that we live in a country rich enough that we CAN isn’t going to kill most of us! Cut out the MacDac’s the rest of the time.
Wow, just wow.
So glad I’m not the only one who thought that was a little odd.
LOL, if you heard the things I hear from my 8th graders your ears would burn up. Diabetes is the least of the conversational waylays.