Scalzi's Weekend Assignment

Weekend Assignment #35: Tell us something you should be thankful for -- but that you're usually not.
Mrs. Linklater is thankful for lots of things she usually doesn't think about being thankful for.
1. She is thankful for her Jeep.  Like a good man, it's strong and reliable. And has a great rear end. Not to put too fine a point on it, but it's also handsome and black. It tears through mud and snow like butter. And carries all her stuff for her. In fact, she spends so much time in her Jeep, she may try to marry it. Or at least have a civil union performed.
2. She is thankful for the salads at White Hen Pantry. Talk about fast food, Mrs. Linklater can jump out of her car [see No. 1] within five feet of the front door, run in and choose from the chicken Caesar, the mandarin chicken, the southwest chicken, the ham and chicken, or  the chicken cobb and be on her way in no time, except in the very early morning, when all the construction guys are in there and she sometimes gets sidetracked.
3. She couldn't be more thankful for her digital camera. Do you know what a pain in the ass it is to try to carry film with you anymore?  Or regular SLR cameras? No thank you.  Her digital is not only so portable she can take it everywhere tucked in a pocket, she can also upload everything in a matter of seconds and send out photos so fresh you can smell coffee and donuts. And the pictures are good, too.
4. She is thankful to be lefthanded, except for the stuff she does righty. She loves that only ten percent of the population are southpaws. And she likes not being lumped with the big group and hanging with the small group. She loves the name southpaw, too, because it sounds like something Yogi Berra might have made up if someone else hadn't gotten there first.
5. She is thankful that the best deli food is here in this country, not some place snotty like France. And not just in New York, either.
6. She is not only thankful, but completely astonished by the internet. And how it has opened the doors to the ever expanding cybersphere. How she can find answers to her questions almost as fast as she can type. How she can communicate over tens of thousands of miles in a second with the push of a button. How it has been her entree to meeting some of the most fascinating, exciting people she has ever known. Once she got through the perverts.
7. She is thankful for polar fleece, without which she wouldn't have a winter wardrobe.
8. She is thankful for the 25 years she was able to enjoy her huge elm tree before it died of Dutch Elm this year. She lives in a town where the first sign of illness in an elm tree and the village will demand that the tree come down.  But hers was almost 13 feet in circumference and nearly 50 feet tall. So she was also grateful that last fall the village forester and three other arborists, all of whom loved her tree as much as she did, stood looking at the evidence of the beetles and told her just to trim back the dead areas and give the tree a chance to make it through the winter, which it did, only to succumb later in the summer.
9. She is thankful for COURT TV because now she understands what her ex-husband does for a living.  She once read a transcript following a trial he won where he called his opposing counsel a cunning linguist.  Think about it.
10. She is thankful for our free market economy, however flawed it may be, because without it she wouldn't have any work.