“Welcome to the Muppet Labs where the future is being made today,” so says Dr. Bunson Honeydew. And you know what that means: Beaker, his unfortunate assistant, is back.

As I recall, I went into chemo wearing my turkey hat to be a bit festive. If you’re going to get stuffed before the meal as the main course, you might as well go out in style.

Somehow, with all the drugs, I fell asleep and woke up roasted and toasted. It’s weird to be the botched experiment–the little guy who’s probed, prodded, and stuffed in the name of science. So if you ask me how I’m doing, now I know better, I’ll say, “Meep Meep Meep Meep Meep” just like Beaker.

And don’t mind me, I’ll just go back to sleep again. I’ll wake up and feel like I’m sleeping, and when I sleep, I feel like I’m sleeping (duh)!

But then I had a Beaker moment where they added a drug back to my regimen (they took it away due to complications the first time) to see what would happen the second go around. And sure enough, “Meep Meep Meep Meep Meep” I had the same problems as before.

When will Dr. Bunson Honeydew ever learn? And when will Beaker ever say anything but “Meep Meep Meep” again?

Don’t get me wrong; I don’t have anything against being Beaker. But who wants to be a muppet, anyway? The magic was in watching Beaker come to life. It’s not so magical when the show’s over, and Beaker gets shoved back in props, waiting for someone to muppet-handle and give him a voice over.

And that’s how the magic of the holidays got sucked out of me. I was sure to nap beforehand, so I didn’t sleep through it. And I took my meds, so I was able to digest the food. And I ate the meal (without gravy).

You come out of an experience like that, and you got to wonder, probably what everybody was questioning this holiday, where’s the magic?

We had our Thanksgiving because we always have it, so we checked it off our list. But it didn’t make it an all-time favorite memory. Not like when Dr. Bunson Honeydew created a hair-raising tonic, which caused Beaker’s orange wig to fly off.

Of course, I’m in a hair-raising tonic experiment of my own every time I feel a fuzzball clumped to the side of my head; I know it’s time for more hair to fly off.

But Beaker would have the perfect thing to say, “Meep Meep Meep Meep Meep.” And you know something, that’s good enough for me.