A Prairie Home Companion with Garrison Keillor

Thanks poem
Saturday, November 22, 2008

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I am thankful for ATM machines
For the smell of coffee beans
For the dishwasher and for the GPS
Thought up by the Pentagon, a great success
That makes it unnecessary for us men
To ever need to ask for directions again.

Thank you thank you thank you thanks a lot
For what we have and for some things that we do not

I am thankful for macaroni and cheese,
Of mac and cheese I have only good memories
Boil water. Put the macaroni in. It's
A very nice meal in about ten minutes.

And speaking of food of low status,
Thank you for instant mashed potatoes
Which is simply dehydrated potato flakes.
Mashed potatoes in one-tenth the time it takes
To boil one and whip it up nice and smooth.
And if you want to know the absolute truth
That dry organic peanut butter — I hate it.
I like the kind with sugar and fat, saturated.

Thank you thank you thank you and merci
Peanut butter has always been merciful to me.

And for the U.S. Postal Service I say thanks
Delivering mail from Florida to Fairbanks,

I am grateful for blogs and other new media
And of course for the miraculous Wikipedia
Which puts information at your fingertips
An innovation as great as sailing ships,
Or putting a steam engine on the rails,
So thank you Larry Sanger and Jimmy Wales.
And thank you Larry Page and Sergey Brin
Who in 1997 launched a search engine
Google, which simply is superb
A noun that quickly became a verb.