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Part 1…
4. The madness of
idiots who have somehow passed a driving test at some point in their lives.
Granted, the
Dallas/Fort Worth metroplex is not going to win any awards for civility on the
roadways. Many of these people are already cray cray, having escalated the art
of vehicular insubordination to a level that would stun the residents of
smaller towns and hamlets across the nation. I’d almost say that these demon
drivers consider it a badge of honor to terrorize neighboring cars as often as
possible, but it’s fairly obvious that these folks have long since lost the
concept of honor, if they ever grasped such a concept, and they have been reduced
to grunting animals who simply haven’t been arrested yet.
But once we have
reached the Thanksgiving milestone each year? Holy COW, does it get wicked, and
fast. Maybe it’s the whole Black Friday thing, that shopping hell-frenzy
created by retailers, wherein consumers are convinced to stand in line for 72
hours for a DVD player they don’t really need because the one they already have
works just fine. (Screw Hi-Def, do you really need to see every single pore on
Angelina Jolie’s face? Like she has any. And the plot of the movie is still the
same, regardless of whether or not you can see each individual blade of grass
in the climactic rescue scene.)
Yep, that could
be the catalyst. We have a shopping day where the Retail Gods convince the
peasants that they must fight and rip at each other to somehow gain an
advantage in a line that leads to a pointless victory, and then those same
peasants are tossed out of the stores once the poorly-planned stock is gone. (Dudes,
why advertise a sale if you are going to run out of the product 3 minutes after
the store opens?) And the peasants, still pumped with adrenaline, get back on
the highways and byways and they are out for blood, because they didn’t get the
latest i-Whatever.
And this
uncontrolled dissatisfaction and anger lasts for another month. From T-Day
until C-Day, bitter people rule the roadways and cause considerable distress
for the smart people who planned ahead and bought what they needed on eBay
three months ago, at a better price and without having to sleep in a tent made
out of discarded fast-food wrappers in front of a chain store.
Whatever is stuck
in their craw, these mindless zombies behind the wheels of SUVs increase
exponentially come Yuletide season, their otherwise-flatlined neural centers
minimally reactivated by some holiday trigger. You can be innocently driving to
the local supermarket, breathing in the aroma of your eggnog-scented car
freshener and thinking pleasant thoughts about a kitten video you watched on
YouTube, and BAM, hundreds of out-of-control vehicles are suddenly swarming all
over the road, driven by demons hell-bent on forcing you to plummet into a nasty
ditch and spill your pumpkin-spice latte.
So you need to
protect yourself. Call your insurance agent right now and demand something like
this: “Update my policy to protect me against anything an idiot can do in a
functioning motor vehicle. Anything. And maybe throw in a clause or something
that will save my ass if I snap and pull some Walking Tall business with a meat cleaver, because it might come to
that. And stop sending me those asinine holiday calendars that always go
directly in the trash. You’re not on my Christmas list and I shouldn’t be on
yours.” Click.
5. The radio
stations that start playing Christmas music at the end of September.
Jesus would not
approve of this. Stop it.
6. Those Salvation
Army people with their stupid bells.
Okay, first,
there’s that whole mess with the Salvation Army actively doing whatever they
can to restrict the rights of gay people in this country, and that some of the
loose change you pluck into their rusty bucket goes right into the funding for
such an un-Christian stance. (Haven’t heard of this? Go do some clicking on the
Web. I can wait.) I’m already not going to give the bell-ringers a single
penny, but does that stop them from getting in my face with a device that
should only be used to signal the household staff that you’re ready for your
bath to be drawn?
No, it does not.
Here they come,
arms pumping and bells clanging, despite the fact that I’m babbling with my
same-sex partner about the latest Lady Gaga CD. (If these fools had read the
bylaws of their organization, they would know that my kind are considered the
work of the devil, and if you piss us off enough we can direct the paths of
hurricanes with our sheer debauchery. Why are you begging for our tainted
rainbow money?)
I just want to
walk into the store and help the economy, since some of our elected officials
clearly don’t want to do anything about it. I don’t want to fight my way past
somebody with irrational focus issues that seems determined to psychologically
abuse me with a musical instrument that no one has taken seriously since the
Mayflower slammed into that rock. Get. Out. Of. My. Way. Do they train you to do this? That’s some
jacked-up wrongness right there.
Of course, on the
flip side of the manic ringers who think that every human walking in their
general direction is a beast to be sonically conquered, we have the
total-slacker ringers who couldn’t be more obvious that they would rather be
doing anything else in the world, including oral surgery. They just stand there
in a dirty Santa hat, smoking a cigarette and lethargically waving the bell
with a minimum of effort so that the thing only makes tiny clicks. You could
throw a Buick into their bucket and they wouldn’t even blink.
7. The trashiness
of certain customers in retail establishments.
I understand that
some people are just generally pigs. Nothing can be done about it, they’ve been
that way all of their lives, we’re better off trying to rehabilitate the
previously-decent folks who are drifting toward a life of sloth and negligence
due to experimental drug-usage, unsatisfying romantic relationships, and failed
attempts at climbing the corporate ladder. But still, one would think that the
Trashy Folk could take a shower and try to be decent during the holidays.
Sadly, this does
not happen. Rather, the Trashy Folk seem to be on some sort of pork-rind
inspired mission to prove to the world that nothing is sacred and we all might
as well stop reading books and just go rut in the jungle. Specific case in
point: The Christmas section at your local Target. Or more pointedly, what that
section looks like after the doors open and the unwashed are allowed to touch
things.
Things start out
fine, with energetic employees lovingly arranging the products in a manner that
inspires joy and harmony. (The concepts, not the backup singers for the latest
funk-rap band.) Everything is glowing with childhood memories and a bit of
sparkly glitter, because things just aren’t properly festive until glitter is
introduced, ask any drag queen. It’s a lovely scene that could probably be in a
movie where Sandra Bullock debates which hunky guy would prove more satisfying
under the mistletoe.
Two seconds after
those fabled front doors open, you would think you were at a nuclear testing facility
in the desert sands of Nevada.
Fragile ornaments
have been unjustly thrown on the floor and shattered, strings of Christmas
lights have been ripped from their boxes and stretched all the way from here to
the pharmacy (and you can never get those things back in the box), the wrapping
paper bins have been knocked asunder like The
Three Little Pigs story originally had four porcine characters before the
closeted editor decided to chop out the subplot about the gay piggy with his
fabulous foil-wallpaper house, and the Christmas candy has been both sampled
and spat out in one aisle that is now a minefield of sugared goo.
What is wrong with people?
8. The Christmas
cards that you fully intend to send but never do.
The art of selecting
and sending Christmas cards is truly a fine thing indeed. Or at least it used
to be. But that was back in the day when people had both patience and a lack of
other things to distract them when the weather turned cold and you could no
longer leave the house, just like Laura Ingalls Wilder when she was surviving
all those blizzards where they nearly lost the livestock if it weren’t for Pa
and his rugged manliness.
In the current
day, three things intrude on the sending of folded-cardboard greetings.
One: We now have
the technology to communicate with each other every day, several times a day if you happen to be one of
those miracle people who have jobs where you don’t have to actually do
anything. Texting, skyping, group-chatting, sexting. We can reach out and touch
anyone as long as we have the right data plan. What’s the point of sending
something through the mail if it means you have to wait a week for the payoff?
Two: Have you
looked at the card selections lately in your local chain store? (Assuming that
you can claw your way past the bell-ringers and the folks camping out to save
three dollars on an electronic device that will be obsolete in 20 minutes.) Most
cards these days are inane, aiming at the lowest common denominator with “jokes”
that wouldn’t make a sea urchin laugh. And the cost? Ten bucks for four cards.
Even more if you want actual envelopes, or a message that hasn’t been so
politically-corrected that it’s more boring than the fruit cup at a retirement
home.
Three: Time. Who
has enough of that any more, with our crazed rushing to accomplish so much that
in the end proves meaningless. Maybe that’s what I’ll ask for this Christmas.
Time. I’d like some of that, please, so I can sit down and sip some hot
chocolate and watch the tree twinkle and listen to old-school Christmas songs
that haven’t been mangled by the latest pop star and not worry about wrapping
everything and just breathe.
But I still want that
i-Whatever under the tree as well, the one that can sync all my contacts, allow
me to push a button and record my favorite TV show while I’m being booked at
the county jail for slapping a drunk Santa, and scrub the toilet until it
shines…
To Be Continued…
