It's a testimony to how disturbing things are in the political arena that three people in the past month have asked me if I would ever run for a public office. What, in their opinions, made me a desirable candidate? Was it my forward-thinking energy policies? My knowledge of the Middle East? My quest for more respect for our children's teachers?

Nope. It was that I admitted in public -- in this very space -- that I went to see "Jackass Two."

As one of these, um, recruiters said, "You can't possibly have any worse skeletons in your closet."

To which I said, "Yeah, right."

But I also thought I might as well come clean. So, here are five reasons why I can never run for a political office:

When I was in junior high in South Florida, someone knew the combination to my locker and in the mornings would squish the sandwich in my lunch bag. Just wad it into a ball of inedible mush. A few days after I got smart and started to carry my lunch with me to classes, the mysterious sandwich smusher started to leave someone else's mangled sandwiches in my locker. Inevitably, they were made from old tuna. Clearly I was not projecting the sort of strength a leader needs to have when dealing with North Korea, International Paper or even disgruntled neighbors at Town Meeting.

When I was a 10th-grader in South Florida, I was an officer for the high school's Key Club. This was, ostensibly, a service organization that was a feeder for the local Kiwanis Club. Mostly, however, we just had parties with cheerleaders at the home of whichever member had both a swimming pool and parents who were out of town. In any case, before a pep rally before a big football game -- along with two other male officers in the club -- I wore a black sequined majorette costume and a fright wig. Somewhere, someone has pictures.

When I was in college in Massachusetts, I had a 2 to 6 a.m. slot as a DJ on the school's radio station. It seemed to me that no one in the world was listening, and so some mornings -- if only to try and find signs of life in the universe -- I would have a segment called "Songs that Degrade Women." It wasn't simply that I was playing songs that were really sexist: It's that I was playing songs that were really bad. To wit: Donny Osmond's "Go Away, Little Girl," and Gary Puckett and the Union Gap's "Woman, Woman" were staples. Sometimes my girlfriend from a women's college nine miles away would join me, and she would elevate the quality of the music (choosing, for example, the Rolling Stones' "Under My Thumb"), and doubling my listenership by convincing her roommate to tune in. Yup, I married that woman. In all fairness, we viewed this segment as a feminist statement on the sexist state of rock 'n' roll music. Nevertheless, there might be tapes.

I also joined a fraternity when I was in college. And then I lobbied hard for the fraternity to accept women, making the house the ultimate oxymoron, a co-ed fraternity. Some people would call this "changing one's mind about an issue." In politics, alas, it is "flip-flopping." There is no faster way to lose an election than to be perceived as a flip-flopper.

As a young advertising executive in Manhattan, I worked on a national brand of toilet paper and thus learned more than anyone needs to know about people's bathroom habits and hygiene. I was even involved in discussions around a plan to try to convince men to use bathroom tissue at urinals. The plan was never executed, but I was in the room when it was discussed and that was a costly political mistake.

There you have it: Why you won't see my name on a ballot this Tuesday -- or ever.

You will, of course, see other names on the ballot. So be sure to vote. It's a privilege. It's a responsibility. And it will keep those pictures of me in sequins under wraps.

(This column originally appeared in the Burlington Free Press on November 5, 2006.)

Close your eyes and take a slow, luxuriant breath. Savor the aroma from the pumpkin pie. The smell of the turkey in the oven. Mother, or Grandmother maybe, is singing a familiar hymn softly to herself as she fills a serving tray with homemade mashed potatoes, and the lyrics she murmurs are reassuring: "We gather together to pass the French dressing."

Yes, the family has indeed gathered together, spreading out from the kitchen to the dining room to the den. From one of those rooms there is the comforting sound of a football game on television, the announcers' voices ensuring that although the family has assembled, no one will have to speak to one another and the holiday thus will remain harmonious.

Thanksgiving has come a long way since 1621.

About the only thing that's the same is that we still drink lots of beer. Make no mistake, we don't drink as much as the pilgrims did. If the pilgrims look a little surly in our minds, it's probably because there was nothing left in the keg.

Some of the changes, of course, are obvious. For example, football is now televised. The pilgrims hadn't even invented the Etch-a-Sketch yet to give them something to look at instead of their in-laws. And there's the Macy's parade with its line of giant, inflatable animals. It would be centuries before we would think up Underdog and Snoopy and SpongeBob, and then figure out how to make them the size of dirigibles.

Just for the record, the main food at that first Thanksgiving wasn't even turkey. The historical records suggest that the biggest part of the menu was venison. Massasoit and his fellow braves brought five deer to the celebration.

And unlike the pilgrims, we don't waste a whole lot of time during the day being thankful. We take our spectacular amounts of plenty for granted, while those pilgrims who survived that first awful winter -- the "starving time," Gov. William Bradford would call it -- were taking great pains to be thankful for the fact they had neither frozen to death nor starved to death nor died of some horrible wasting illness. (The especially prescient among them might also have been grateful that they were living many centuries before the television program, "Pants-Off, Dance-Off.")

And so say what you will about the pilgrims, my sense is they probably threw a pretty darn good Thanksgiving. Sure, they look a little dour in those dark colors, and I am wary of anyone, man or woman, who puts a buckle on his hat. But their Thanksgiving was a big tent in which everyone was invited. I like that. And they were legitimately grateful for the small blessings that marked their lives suddenly, not the least of which was their health. According to Bradford's narrative of the experiment we call the Plimoth Plantation, there were barely a half-dozen people healthy enough to care for the sick and the dying some moments that first winter. Roughly one in two pilgrims died.

Sometimes we forget that the vast majority of the planet doesn't have the bounty we do, or that most nations don't have even the luxury of deciding which prescription drugs should be a part of a Medicaid program and which ones should not. Sometimes we forget there are hungry and homeless and people who are very, very cold right here in Vermont.

The pilgrims weren't perfect: I, for one, will never forgive them for leaving us a priggish work ethic that precludes me from ever sleeping late. But they got two things right: They were thankful for what they had. And they made sure that the whole neighborhood came to their party.

Those are legacies worth remembering this coming Thursday -- and throughout this holiday season.

Happy Thanksgiving.

(This column originally appeared in the Burlington Free Press on November 19, 2006.)

OK, since Thursday you have consumed more food than will be eaten in the Sudan between now and Valentine’s Day, you have watched 19 hours of people you will never meet playing football, and your exercise has consisted entirely of standing in line for a product called a Playstation, despite the fact you are 47 years old and by now should have a life.

Is this all you will spend money on this holiday season? Of course not.

Some of us will also buy the new CrustaStun. My friend, Kelly Kendall, alerted me to this product. Essentially, the CrustaStun electrocutes a lobster, which is certainly a more humane way to go than being dropped into a pot of boiling water. But, of course, when the CrustaStun is done you are still left with a giant dead earwig on steroids. My point? Why in the world anyone ever decided to eat one of those babies in the first place is completely beyond me.

Nonetheless, I do savor the start of the holiday season. But I also believe this should be a month when we take the time to celebrate each other, not spend every waking moment trying to find a parking space within the same state as the shopping mall, or ordering presents online. (If we are online, we should be using the time constructively to spell words phonetically on our instant-messaging system as if it were 1841 and we had only gone to school till we were seven.)

Consequently, so you can spend more time with your family and less time shopping, once again this year here are five gifts — not including the CrustaStun — that people (and animals) on your list might desire. I am not being sarcastic. Unlike the CrustaStun, these are all items that I appreciate.

1. Weasel Balls. That sounds worse than it is. I really liked my weasel ball. So did my cats. A weasel ball is, in essence, a plastic orb the size of a baseball with a faux fur tail attached to it. The ball has a battery-powered motor inside it, as well as a small weight, and the result is a ball and a tail that roll spasmodically around your kitchen floor.

2. The Sharper Image Ionic Breeze Air Purifier. I gave my wife one for Valentine’s Day. To be honest, Valentine’s Day is not the best time to give your spouse an air purifier. But the product still fascinates me. I place it near our wood stove and watch it filter from the air the particles that prior to that were making themselves right at home in my family’s lungs. During the International Paper tire burn, I placed it outside my front door. It didn’t seem as effective, but in hindsight I can’t imagine how I thought a smoldering tire would fit through its vents.

3. A telephone headset. There is no better way to do the dishes than while talking to my father. Wait, I have that backwards. There is no better way to talk to my father than while doing the dishes. With a headset, you almost always can multitask.

4. A professional massage. No one doesn’t like a massage. Even people who’ve never had a massage like massages. They just view them as a luxury — or, in some cases, they’re uncomfortable having a stranger’s hand on their bodies. Well, tell them to get over it. A professional massage is a great gift.

5. Floor mats for your car. The only thing people treat more cavalierly than their toothbrushes are the floor mats in their automobiles. When was the last time you changed your toothbrush? Well, it’s been even longer for the floor mats. But think of how much time you spend in your car: Far more, I would wager, than you spend brushing your teeth. This is especially true if, like me, you live in Lincoln. Nothing is in walking distance of Lincoln, except for more Lincoln. Oh, wait, the Long Trail is here, too. But most of us drive to get there.

So, there you have it: An instant shopping list. Now go stun a lobster and call your dad. Happy Holidays.

(This column originally appeared in the Burlington Free Press on November 26, 2006.)