The Corporate Holiday Season Is Almost Over

Two down one to go. 

Every year America gets all worked up and goes on a massive money spending spree.  It is unstoppable.  It is unavoidable.  It is as American as apple pie and obesity.

It always begins in October.  Money is splurged on cheap plastic costumes that, or may not, be flame retardant.  (on a side rant:  the term flame retardant always makes me smile.  My mind connects those words with “flaming retard”; which brings a picture of an extremely empowered and proud mentally handicapped person.  Maybe with a gimp arm, but drools with sass and flair.
now, back to the original rant.)
Money is also blown on giant bags of candy.  Everyone starts buying the candy “for the kids on Halloween” the first week of October.  They will eat all this candy a few pieces at a time and have to buy a new bag “for the kids on Halloween” the second week.  Week three of October is always stressful, so a third and fourth bag “for the kids on Halloween” will need to be purchased.  Finally on October 31st, on the way home from work, a quick stop will have to be made at the local Stop N Go and a crappy bag of reject candy corns will have to be picked up to actually hand out to the kids tonight, on Halloween. 

October 31st, Halloween: 
INVESTMENT:  $200 spent on shitty costumes for the kids (which they only wore for an hour), 8 pounds of chocolate (all eaten by you), 1 pound of two year old candy corn (given out to ungrateful brats at door), and industrial strength cleaner used to remove rotten eggs from front of house (stupid kids, candy corn is great, they just need to give it a chance).
RETURN:  2 cavities, 15 pounds, and contempt for the neighborhood hooligan kids.

Before noon on October 31st, the run up to the next big corporate holiday is in full swing.  Great big jack o lanterns are quietly replaced with big gourds filled with vegetables and bundles of wheat and grass.  Why this is supposed to represent Thanksgiving, I don’t know.  This is a relatively peaceful build up.  You won’t even realize it is coming until the beginning of the third week of November when all of your distant, disliked, relatives start calling and inviting themselves to your house for dinner.  Suddenly you have to go buy a turkey the size of a small dog, shove old bread up it’s ass, and break out the craptastic folding chairs from the attic.  (don’t forget to cover the couch in plastic...your Great Uncle Eddy is coming, and he leaks)

The Fourth Thursday in November:  Thanksgiving:
INVESTMENT:  $300 spent on turkey and “all the fixings”, booze for all your alcoholic relatives, and a new couch.  (Great Uncle Eddy doesn’t just leak, apparently whatever it is that is leaking can eat through plastic.)
RETURN:  8 weeks of “turkey salad” sandwiches, 30 more pounds, and an emergency gall bladder surgery.  (Medical Warning:  gorging yourself apparently can lead to acute gall bladder troubles)

A week BEFORE Thanksgiving the decorations have already started to transform to include evergreen trees coated in lights and flashy balls (finally something I can support).  It’s Christmas time and that means an amalgamation of mythical gift givers and vague Christian traditions.  The holiday appears to stem from a celebrating Jesus’ birthday, and when he was born in a manger at the North Pole, Santa Claus showed up and gave him a sock full of crappy plastic trinkets.  That’s a simplified explanation, somewhere in there should be some reindeer, wise men and something about egg nog.
There is absolutely no hiding from this holiday.  It wraps around you like sweat on a fat guy’s balls; just when you think it can’t get any worse, it does.  Otherwise civilized people will soon be beating each other senseless to get that last Tickle Me Elmo.  This holiday is paramount to teaching the next generation of American kids about capitalism and the magic of credit cards.

December 25th, Christmas:
INVESTMENT:  $1000 (at least) on gifts for your two kids, spouse, and you’re parents; who refuse to die already.  $300 spent on another extravagant feast for those ingrate relatives again. (I thought you were going to change your phone number) $3000 in legal fees for knocking out that ladies teeth at Toys R Us. 
RETURN:  20 hours a week in over time to pay off credit card bills, 20 More pounds, and 80 hours of community service for misdemeanor assault, but it was totally worth it when little Billy’s eyes lit up after he opened that Wii, even if it was splattered with blood.

•   Comments(3)    Posted by killer on 11/23 at 12:49 AM
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