The Lunacy of Thanksgiving.

I just had my third Thanksgiving meal in as many days. While the second one was completely Indian, and completely more delicious, I have serious doubts regarding the "traditional" American meals. I imagine the conversation surrounding the origins (between people I imagine as college frat boys) would go something like this:

Joe: Lets have a new holiday where people eat a lot.
Bob: Wow, great idea. We should do it where they eat the same exact combination of food every single year. It could be a holiday celebrating the food more than anything else.
Joe: Yeah, forget that Christmas and Easter "being with friends and family" garbage.
Bob: Yeah screw them, who needs family?
Joe: So, what kind of food should we celebrate?
Bob: Well, I was thinking we could take some of this wet bread and stuff it in this bird here.
Joe: Wow, you are a genius. And lets cook it for about 6 hours straight.
Bob: Brilliant! There is nothing else in my cookbook that has to cook for that long!
Joe: Dude, you have a cookbook? Seriously. Wow. Well, whatever. When its done cooking, we'll take whatever liquid comes out of the bird, and we'll pour it over some mashed potatoes.
Bob: Will the genius never end? But lets not stop there, lets use potatoes for something else!
Joe: Well, if we're not careful, people will get tired of potatoes. Let's find a different starchy root.
Bob: Too true. How about sweet potatoes?
Joe: Excellent. What can we do with them?
Bob: Well you know how we drizzled the bird liquid all over the wet bread and mashed potatoes?
Joe: Yeah?
Bob: Lets put brown sugar and marshmallows over something that is ALREADY sweet and ALREADY has complex sugars in the form of starch!
Joe: OMG YOU ARE BRILLIANT MAN, BRILLIANT!!
Bob: But lets not stop there. Lets put MORE desserts on the dinner table!
Joe: Like what?
Bob: Lets have them spread cranberry jelly all over everything.
Joe: We are going to be millionaires for coming up with this.
Bob: What about for actual dessert?
Joe: Take something you wouldn't expect and put it into a pie.
Bob: Like what?
Joe: How about a squash or something?
Bob: A pumpkin!!
Joe: Yes!! And another one could be completely pointless: A sugar pie.
Bob: Well that's cool but don't you think people would hesitate to eat that?
Joe: Yeah, well maybe if we just put some pecans on top of it.
Bob: Oh ok then yeah that's a good idea too.
Joe: I am getting so excited about this. Its so American to have a holiday celebrating eating things that are bad for you.
Bob: As American as apple pie.
Joe: Yeah, mmmm I want some apple pie now. Lets add that to the list of desserts.
Bob: I don't know, Joe, I've been writing all this stuff down... and I don't think people are going to buy into this. I mean, don't you think they're smarter than that?
Joe: No. Not really.