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I talk about how we may not be able to do Christmas this year as we are really tight on money (Off topic, and not in the podcast, I’m not really that much into the holiday anyway and it isn’t any skin off my teeth if the whole thing would just go away, but to each his own!).

We went to visit my sister-in-law for Thanksgiving and brought Dwight’s senile Uncle Clifford. On the way back, he was in some fantasy world in which he had left his keys to his house in Portland, Oregon (which we assume was sold for back taxes about 8-9 years ago) at his neighbor’s across the street and he didn’t know how he would be able to get back into his house. Then he was worried that he left his second wife Ruth as well as her mother somewhere and she would be worried about him. He doesn’t talk about Ruth much–she apparently left him for another man and she’s probably also long dead. So it was an excruciating drive for me.

As it’s the first day of Christmas season (yuck), I play “Santa Claus is Freaking Me Out” by Lord Weatherby. I read his blurb from Garageband.com, but I got the MP3 from MusicAlley from Mevio. I hope you enjoy it, you crazy Christmas-type people, you.

Flyswatter Show

 

Liberal. Atheist. Vegan. Different.

I remember the original Coleco Cabbage Patch Kids and the horrible demand for these stupid, butt-ugly dolls. My mother had to get one for my baby sister, who ultimately pitched a horrifying screaming fit because she wanted one with a certain type of hair and my mom got the only one she was able to find (Hey, she was three at the time and she’s turned out to be a pretty swell person, so all is forgiven!). Unfortunately, Americans continue to be animals. From The Seattle Times:

Audio-enhanced chatter captured on a cellphone video posted on YouTube and interviews with witnesses offer some hints.

The video shows a police officer crouching by a 6-foot-5-inch, 270-pound man lying at the entrance of the Long Island Wal-Mart. A paramedic pumps the man’s chest so forcefully his limp legs and feet joggle. Shoppers peer from behind glass doors or stand a few feet away, hands in pockets.

“They need to shock him,” a voice says.

The paramedic stops pumping. The man’s shirt has been pulled to his neck, revealing his belly. A woman in the crowd mutters, “Pregnant.”

Another cracks a joke.

The women laugh.

Pop Pop, who was afraid to give his full name, remembered Damour telling him, “I don’t want to be here.”

Across the entrance lobby, eight men, younger than Pop Pop, guarded the door closest to the crowd. Pop Pop remembered someone telling Damour to move to that side.

By 3:30 a.m., the crowd had grown to 2,000. The line heaved and swayed. Above their heads, people passed a plastic shopping cart from hand to hand, like at a rock concert.

“It got scary out of nowhere,” Augustine recalled. “The crowd in the back just pushed.”

Someone yanked Augustine’s pocketbook off her shoulder and ripped the side of her leather coat.

A woman pushed Jones, who said back to her: “We can’t move!” She felt someone punch her left temple. The force knocked off her glasses.

Sgro fell to the ground; her right arm was broken. She telephoned her mother, Therese, telling her, “We were attacked.”

Her mother called 911 and raced to the scene with her husband, Robert Sgro, a firefighter. They got there when police arrived. Therese Sgro told an officer, “Can’t you see the crowd is out of control?”

She said he replied sarcastically: “I’m surprised we haven’t heard gunshots yet.”

Police stayed about a half-hour. Jones and the Sgros left. Meanwhile, Augustine was in line, struggling to breathe. Wal-Mart workers kept yelling at the crowd: “Move back 4 feet!”

No one did.

I hate Christmas. I hate everything about it, especially the pressure to tap your bank account out to try to convince people that you love them by how financially wrecked you have become. And my mother is a Christmas person, which is why we don’t see eye-to-eye. Well that, and the whole religion thing.

I hate the time pressure, the pressure to be all happy, the pressure to be original, the pressure to spend spend spend. I hate feeling obligated and hate that others feel obligated on my behalf, because I really don’t want anything. I love my friends and family and would rather see them at another time–any time I see people I love, it’s a festival. I don’t need a calendar date.

I’m sad. I love my mother. And I just don’t love Christmas.

Flyswatter Show

Liberal. Atheist. Vegan. Different.