Thank you, Healthcare.gov

Thank you for giving the Republicans in my life something to be justifiably angry about

I’m so deeply thankful for all the technology in my life—my iPhone, my Mac, Amazon, Netflix, Zulily, and so much more. But this year, there’s one website that holds a special place in my heart: Healthcare.gov. And not for the reason you might think.

OF COURSE I’m grateful for all of my friends and family who can now get health insurance. But there’s another reason why I’m so grateful to Healthcare.gov: it gives my vengeful Republican mother a target on which to unleash all of her seething, frothing-at-the-mouth Republican rage.

Indeed, I’m grateful for the gift that Healthcare.gov has given all of the Republicans in my life: the gift of justified rage.

The Obamacare rollout was obviously supposed to go much more smoothly than this, but it turns out that trying to enroll 48 million uninsured Americans over the course of six months is…like…hard. While the Obama administration was expecting 500,000 enrollees for the month of October, it only got some 106,000, and even those numbers are a little fuzzy.

So you bet your ass Republicans were all over that like white on rice.

So why is it a good thing that all of my Republican friends and family members are in an uproar over the malfunctioning Healthcare.gov website? BECAUSE IT MEANS I DON’T HAVE TO LISTEN TO ANYMORE CONSPIRACY THEORIES. Who cares if there may have been a massive, CIA-orchestrated Benghazi cover-up when OMG THERE’S THIS REAL THING RIGHT HERE THAT IS TOTALLY SCREWING UP LIKE, FOR REALSIES. It’s like Christmas came early for my mother.

And because of that, my mother’s anti-Obama sentiments have become more…focused. She went from sharing four or five articles a day on everything from Benghazi to Syria to autism-inducing toxins in hand soap—to just straight-up, boiling-over fury at the Healthcare.gov muck up.

Which means this Thanksgiving, I know exactly what she’s going to be ticked off about and I can strategize accordingly. Do you know how hard it is to keep a straight face when someone blind-sides you with a conspiracy theory? It’s hard! One year, my mom actually read a book (A BOOK) on the Obama birth certificate conspiracy theory, so of course she brought it up at the dinner table. Turns out, the wrong response was to say, “that’s the dumbest f*cking thing I’ve ever heard in my life.”

Another plus: the glitchy Healthcare.gov fiasco is a great conversation diverter when Mom and all my sisters start on the, “when are you gonna have another baby?!?!” line.

So, thanks, Healthcare.gov. I really owe you one.