We are now officially less than a week away from Thanksgiving, which means I've already started working out, both to make room for all the food I intend to eat, and so I'm in prime fighting shape for getting more food than anyone else in my family. Just the way Ilike it.

Thanksgiving is a cutthroat holiday. As such, these are my new set of rules for Thanksgiving '08. Cut them out and tape them to a cupboard, Mom. I'm ready to rumble.

* I am engaged to be married to a vegetarian. As a result, Iam legally allowed to eat two grown-up shares of the turkey:my sweet Annette's portion and my own. Those are just the rules of coupledom and the law of the jungle. What's mine is hers, and what's hers is mine. And if what's hers is a section of food she refuses to eat, then it is now mine. Pass the gravy.

* Eating jellied cranberry sauce is my one and only chance to eat something that's shaped like a tin can. Do not ruin this for me. I revel in this opportunity, since eating anything made out of tin sounds like a really awesome thing to do, until you actually try it, and you break a tooth or three and tear your gums to shreds. After that experience, you will learn to appreciate that soft glob of purple.

* Pie is infinitely better than cake. Idon't make the rules, Ijust enforce them. This is why Thanksgiving is a better holiday than your birthday. Nobody makes a gigantic meal and invites all your family to come home from whatever far-away city they live in to celebrate your birthday. Rather, you'll probably spend your birthday working, then going home to your empty apartment, where your dog has made yet another mess on the rug, and no one baked you a cake.

And that's why Thanksgiving loves you more than your birthday does.

* Food will be passed clockwise. Don't be bringing any of these crazy "counter-clockwise" concepts into my home. It's called counter for a reason; it goes against all social norms. Without norms, there is only chaos. Clockwise!

* You can't open gifts until the dishes have been washed. That's the rule my parents have always used to trick us kids into actually contributing. This also is the rule that never works on Thanksgiving, since there's no gifts to be unwrapped.

Answer:Bring me gifts.

* I am not sitting at the kids' table this year. No, siree. I'm 30 years old this year, family. Iam tired of this nonsense. Obviously, we just need to chip in and buy a bigger table for all us adults, or we need to come up with some fair and balanced rotation wherein we all take turns sitting at the kids' table.

Ilove my little cousins and all, but Iam too old and too fat to be sharing a piano bench with one of them, scooted up to the card table and listening to them talk about how Tommy ate a bug out on the playground one day and all boys have cooties.

I do not have cooties. Iam a grown man, Ihave a mortgage and a 401(k) or what's left of it and Ihave earned my place at that grown-up table. So scoot in, because here Icome. And make room for Annette, too. She's a vegetarian, so she'd probably like you to pass her the mashed potatoes.

Clockwise, please.

(Columnist and raging carnivore Kelly Hagen can be reached at 250-8259 or kelly.hagen@bismarcktribune.com.)