The Post X-Mas Reaction

First off, Happy New Year to everyone. 2006 provided "Everything is A-OK" with 35 posts-worth of idiocy, retardation and anger and, although i'm no psychic, i have a feeling that 2007 won't disappoint. I get this sneaking suspicion that every year from here on out will be ripe with possibilities for cynical commentary and personally i can't wait for a democrat (possibly a black one or a woman) to be president in 2008 and not because everything will automatically become sunshine and puppy dogs. Democratic presidents have left us no shortage of comedy and embarrassment in the last few decades and i imagine this one will be no slouch, whoever it is. But alas, i digress. This particular post is a reaction the the x-mas season that we've just survived. (And no, i don't think calling it x-mas takes Christ out of it. More on this later.)

My first complaint, of course, is that it's been Christmas since Halloween. (My friend Sara gave a first-hand account about this in her blog.) The song is about 12 days of Christmas, not 47. The marketers and the retail corporations have pushed christmas earlier and earlier every year. Why? Because the earlier they get you thinking about it, the earlier you'll start shopping for it. Black Friday (the day after Thanksgiving) sales were down this year, want to know why? Because all the people who usually waited for that day to shop had started weeks earlier this year. And what does that do for people who are already a little bah-humbug about the whole thing in the first place? It shuts them off. At least it did for me. I had my head in the sand avoiding Christmas up until about the 22nd, when i absolutely had to start shopping or risk offending my whole family.

And by the time i got to the mall, i had already worked myself into such a bad mood about it that the only thing i could do was walk around the mall brainstorming ideas for people and didn't actually buy a single thing. On the way into the mall, i was lucky enough to find a person backing out of a space on the 2nd floor of the garage, i had about 15 cars stacked up behind me and there were about 18 coming the other way. The people coming down the garage, either leaving or looking for spots themselves, wouldn't stop passing through to let this person back out and leave. So that left me sitting there with my blinker on, traffic backing up behind me, and nervous that someone coming down would stop just long enough to let this person out before whipping their vehicle into my spot. So while i'm sitting there, waiting for the inevitable spot steal move by someone coming the other way, i wandered off into a little day dream about what i would do if my spot was taken. I pictured myself putting my parking brake on, calmly leaving my car running in the middle of traffic, while i walked over to the freshly parked car (i mentally assumed it would be a BMW or Benz), opened the car door for the person, and without hesitation, punched them in the face repeatedly. And when i snapped out of this daydream and pulled into my spot, i consciously thought that there was little doubt in my mind that i would have done just that. Normally you have a little conscience in there that reminds you not to go insane, but mine was on vacation. I honestly didn't have that little voice in there telling me not to hit someone, and it really, truly, seemed like a good idea that i wouldn't have been surprised to see myself follow through. Upon entering the mall and thinking more about that reaction, i was truly shocked at what the "holiday season" had done to me.

My other huge frustration is gift buying. See, i'm not a super thoughtful person, i admit this. I don't know my friends birthdays, i barely know my family's birthdays, and although i'm a creative person and could definitely come up with great gifts every year, i rarely put enough time or effort into it, or start early enough to pull off the "creative, thoughtful, sometimes home-made but really enjoyable gift" thing. So i end up at the mall, 3 days before x-mas with some great ideas but no way to pull them off, and instead i wander around finding gifts that are expensive and yet just good enough for the people i'm buying them for. They're not the perfect gift, but hey, they might like it right? So i find myself in Roxy or Pacific Sunwear or Steve Madden or Best Buy or Nordstrom's or LaCoste buying overpriced things and trying to place a dollar value on my relationship with the person i'm buying for. I found a really nice sweater that i though my sister would love, but i felt myself trying to accessorize it or find something else that would put me closer to the dollar limit i felt my sister was worth. And i pretty much wanted to throw up over that feeling. I also found out that my cousins were buying me gifts personally (traditionally in my family the parents get all the nieces and nephews gifts and the cousins let that suffice, instead of buying an individual gift for all 8 cousins in the family), so immediately i felt obligated to buy them something and broke into a cold sweat over which cousins would be buying me thing personally this year and if i needed to get something for them too.

Last year during x-mas, i was a salaried employee and although i wasn't making a ton, i knew i could spend almost freely on x-mas and be alright. Well this year i'm starting my own business and waiting tables which puts me in a little different tax bracket than i was in last year. So i went into it with a little different frame of mind than usual.

But the whole thing just really turned me off this year. I hated the music, i hated the crowds, i hated that feeling of obligation to buy everyone something, and to decide which friends were "worth it." So in my mind, Christmas was cancelled. I wanted nothing to do with it. And i got that feeling from a lot of my friends and my family too. It was just getting to a point that the tens of thousands of dollars we all cumulatively spent could have been put to better use. I think next year, we'll really cancel Christmas and go on a vacation or spend the money on food and wine so we all sit around a big table and enjoy it.

And it turns out that my christmas didn't end up being so bad, but the events that made it for me weren't the presents at all, but it was x-mas eve when my family came over and drank too much together and laughed and told stories and ate a delicious meal. And it was on x-mas morning when i woke up at 10 and realized that my family had grown old enough that we didn't wake up at 6 and race to the tree anymore. We all wandered into the kitchen where we sat at the table, ate ibuprofen, drank a lot of water (and maybe a bloody mary) and put the delicious casserole that my grandma had given us for x-mas in the oven and didn't start giving each other gifts until almost noon. It was that emphasis on something else, on being friends, on being family that made it for me. It had nothing to do with my gifts or the gifts i gave.

And i propose that everyone who reads this post and realizes that they felt even the slightest bit of agreement with it, that they take a new idea to their families for next year. Let's take the power out of the marketers hands, lets take the the consumerism out of it, lets let Black Friday be Completely Fucking Dead Friday, lets stop shopping, stop being frustrated, stop throwing our hard earned money away on things that people don't need, let's stop trying to place a dollar sign on our friends and family's worth. Let's do something different next year. My family has already thrown the idea out there of taking a trip somewhere together or going skydiving together, just to name a few.

I call it x-mas because it's easier to write. Some people say i'm taking the Christ out of Christmas, and i really could care less because i don't think Christmas has been about Christ in this country for a long time. So take him out, put him back in, whatever, i could care less. But what i do think we absolutely should do is take the capitalism and consumerism out of christmas for good.

Thanks for reading. See you in 2007.

I Don't Know If This Is A Sign Of The Apocalypse or a WTF? Award.

Probably both. Our fearless leader goes to bed before Saddam is executed. Obviously it meant a lot to him.

The WTF? Awards

Since there's a lot of crazy things going on in the world that may not be a sign of the impending apocalypse, i've started the WTF? Awards. Whenever i find something that makes me say, "WTF?" it'll be here. And every few weeks we'll recap and award the best one a winner.

So, without any further adieu, is this what consists of surgery in China? Let's just be glad the dolphins didn't need their colons checked.

The Worst Thing I've Ever Posted

Disclaimer: I've had some drinks, but that's no excuse. The best writers in the world write when inspiration hits, and this is the inspiration i had tonight. So don't consider this an apology, it's just a disclaimer. Take this for what you will. Burn me at the stake in the comments.

Discovering a Garage Sale

It’s a typical night, although not one I had high hopes for. It’s Wednesday and that’s not a popular day for garage sales. Still, I need to support my family and this is how I’ve made my living for the last 6 months. It definitely wasn’t what I had anticipated doing when I crept under that border fence. My wife and child were already here. I got her across when she was 8 months pregnant and I actually thought she would burst right there, right in the back on the truck. She had my son in a nice clean hospital, just like I said she would and now he’s a U.S. citizen, just like I knew he’d be.

So here I am, sitting in the cab of a pickup that by day carries 7 guys and a lot of palm fronds. By night, it carries me and two others and we do a kind of yardwork that is different from the one the fucking gringos pay us so cheaply for. This one is work, and takes patience, but it pays and is just un poquito more exciting.

We’ve been driving for about 2 hours tonight. Since about 11. That’s the cost of doing business. This 1997 white chevy pickup doesn’t get the gas mileage it used to. Still, it has the quietest idle of anything we own and that makes all the difference. We’ve found a few morsels that will tide us over and make good Christmas gifts for the ninos but we haven’t found “cuenta grande” just yet.

There’s a few neighborhoods we prefer. We mow and rake and weed-eat there in the daylight and we learn schedules and we learn habits. Just because we work blue-collar jobs, doesn’t mean we have blue-collar minds.

After scouting a few new places we cruise through familiar territory. Condos with closed garages. Nice places give nice people false security. White people associate ghettos and barrios with crime because of the dingy appearance, but they’re some of the safest neighborhoods in town. We bring the barrios to them.

“There it is,” I say to the driver without the slightest hint of exhilaration. The sight of the open door has become pretty routine. At this hour, there’s always one.

We can mow a half-acre lawn in 20 minutes, we can trim 25 trees, remove all the branches and rake up the shrapnel in an hour, we can clean out a garage in 12 minutes. We know where the good stuff is and we know our demographic. In Scottsdale, golf bags full of clubs fetch a nice price with half-way wealthy white people, work-out equipment, not so much. This place has a snowboard, boots and a roof rack. This town’s average temperature is 78 degrees. We’ll leave those. But we’ll take these power tools and this blowtorch and this bucket full of various nuts, bolts, washers and screws. There’s a day-laborer pick up site at 44th street that will love these. We’ll leave the couches and furniture, they might get money at a sale but they might draw attention moving at 2 a.m.

I don’t like to say Christmas at these jobs. Christmas involves Christ and I don’t think his father would be too proud of me now. But his son would. He was all about helping the poor and needy. Since he hasn’t come back yet, we’re going to help ourselves. I’m sure he’ll understand when he gets here.

Now, usually an open garage means a car is here. But evidence is not something we’re interested in leaving. We’ll leave it alone, unless…yeah, this idiot left the car unlocked. There’s change in the center console, identifying information and titles in the glove box. (Some time’s there are even keys. We’re not in this for grand theft auto, but we know people who are.) And just in case the pinche rich gringo is oblivious to the fortunes he has, we’ll arrange everything nicer than we found it. This car is nice and there’s a key here. We’re not in this for grand theft auto, but we know people who are and this will do nicely. You’d think with skateboards, an iPod, power tools and golf clubs that I wouldn’t be interested in the change in the center console. But that’s where you’d be wrong amigo. 100 pennies make a dollar makes 7000 pesos. That’s worth every penny to me. They say the only reason we’re in America is because we’ll do the work that nobody else will…if that means counting the pennies that nobody else will, then you’ve got me pegged.

In the back seat, there’s an apron. Maybe this person isn’t making that much money after all. Ah fuck him, the servers always make more than me when I bussed tables. With this much stuff, he does fine. There’s a wine key in his apron. Obviously he works at one of those nicer places. We’ll take this too, just to stick the corkscrew into the man’s ribs a bit.

He’ll wake up tomorrow and call the policia. They’ll ask some questions, mainly for insurance purposes and they’ll leave, never to talk again. Even if they find a fingerprint, they’ll never find us. They call it undocumented for a reason.

And we’re off. We’ve taken anything of value to us, but not everything of value to him. He has one of those fancy laser things that keeps the door from closing on cars and kids. If the door is closed in the morning and everything is clean and tidy, nobody will be the wiser for quite a while. This will lead to confusion for the boss, but not for the new owner.

This stuff, along with what we have found the last few nights will make a nice garage sale. And nothing will look better than I can afford. I’m selling their hides back to them and none of them will be any the wiser.

The hours are hard, but it’s worth it. My family is better off, and I’d do anything for my family.

Adam Wright is a frustrated writer and frustrated human who has been shunned and pushed aside by the writing community and then had his car and his garage robbed. He has given up on writing as a profession and embraced writing as a simple hobby, much like knitting or painting. He has no proof or basis of assumption about the perpetrator of his crime, just an idea in his head. And if that makes him a bad person, then that shoe fits.

Today's Sign that the Apoclypse is Absolutely Upon Us