Yesterday on this very site I straightened out my posturing regarding Thanksgiving. If you didn't see that column, FOR SHAME, and here's the plot summary: I used to pretend I didn't like Thanksgiving, and now I've joined sane society. Stuffing Day rules, which you knew. I'm now fully on-Mayflower in recognizing Thanksgiving as the best of all holidays, and I'm not going to waste time preaching to people who don't need converting.

Instead, I'm going to harp on the only area in which my thanklessness was warranted: You need to stop using football as an example of Thanksgiving's charms. I love watching the NFL, but the annual Lions and Cowboys games that form the background noise to the Guthrie and the gluttony are the most overrated element of the day.

This is partly because the games themselves are rarely any good due to the Lions always being crappy and the Cowboys never being as good as advertised. Things are looking up in that department this year, but that doesn't solve the problem.

One of the primary appeals of televised football is its relative scarcity. If you're not a fan, it may seem like the NFL is on all the time, but there are actually several hundred episodes of "CSI" aired between the last game of the week on Monday night and the first game of the following week on Sunday afternoon. This provides just enough time to get the poisonous new Lowe's jingle out of your head between games, which prevents you from cutting your head off with a chainsaw spite-purchased from Home Depot. That song would kill a baseball fan.

(It's true that there are now third-tier NFL games on Thursday nights in the second half of the season, but those are only shown on the NFL's own network, which I don't get. Since I can't watch them and their existence undercuts my point, let's ignore them.)

So showing a couple of football games in the middle of the week only serves to undermine one of the NFL's primary assets. And they do it on the one Thursday afternoon a year when everyone has something better going on!

I spent yesterday afternoon ranking my sweatpants in order from "Could leave the house in these in a pinch if Emily didn't know about it" to "Infested but comfy"; I don't have anything planned for Thursday, but there's an excellent chance the afternoon will revolve around cursing out underperforming early season clementines.

Even though I don't like the idea of squandering football's precious scarcity, it would be a welcome diversion from either chore. But no, they save the midday, midweek football for Thursday, when I'll be otherwise occupied and, with any luck, my eyes will be crusted shut with collateral damage sustained during my record-setting gravy boat-stand, so I won't be able to see the TV anyway.

The easiest way to make something special is to make it rare. That's why the McRib only comes around once a year. There's been much speculation as to why pigs are seasonal at McDonald's if tomatoes aren't, but I think it's pretty clear that they are intentionally driving demand up by keeping supply down. I'm sure this is also why my favorite bourbon is Eagle Rare. What a brilliant name! If they called it Eagle Fairly Common Since We Produce It By the Tank Year-Round, I might just drink Maker's Mark.

This is also how restaurants have been able to con us into ordering our food medium-rare instead of medium-well. It's obviously a ploy to reduce charcoal costs by serving us half-cooked food, but we fall for it, because "rare" is so alluring. "Well" sounds all right on the surface, but isn't nearly as enticing when you really think about it. Sometimes people fall down wells. Sometimes people say, "Well ..." right before they tell you why your $20 oil change is going to cost $90.

Therefore, I'm going to keep my football rare next week by just focusing on the Patriots Monday night game against the Kansas City Chiefs. The Chiefs weren't very good before their quarterback broke his hand, so I figure the Pats will crush them and I'll be in bed by halftime. But I'm still excited for the game, because the Chiefs provide excellent fodder for the opposing-team Bloody Mary and deviled egg tribute.

For the Deviled Eggs

My understanding is that "Chiefs" isn't particularly offensive as Indian-themed nicknames go, but it still makes me a little uncomfortable, so I prefer to think of the Chiefs as being a collection of high-ranking police officials. YUP, this week we're finally going to put bacon on our eggs!

For the Bloody Marys

And it's about time we got a little barbecue sauce into our Bloody Marys, too. If you're just looking to get participation credit, you can get by with a dose of KC Masterpiece, but I don't imagine the good chefs of Kansas City will be too impressed (most of them read this column). I'm going to use a very simple mix of brown mustard, Trader Joe's Chili Pepper Sauce, and Worcestershire.

This is also the week we break out the bourbon, too, since this is the closest the Pats come to Kentucky this season. If you have leftover Wild Turkey from a story you wrote earlier in the week, use that. Otherwise, follow your heart and your liquor cabinet.

About the author: Will Gordon loves life and hates mayonnaise. You can drink with him in Boston or follow him on twitter @WillGordonAgain.