Holiday Horrors

Just FYI, it's impossible to disengage from the world during the hoopla and stress heavy, shopping season. That's what this is—Shopping Season versus the Holiday Season. Groceries still need to be bought, malls have to be hit and take out must be hunted and gathered. If I could, voluntarily, go into a coma from Thanksgiving until December 26th, I would.

While out and about, I saw this fuckery (at right).

This is a sure fire way to make sure everyone knows you're a spectacularly poisonous idiot—put a confederate flag decal in the rear window of your car. This is Massachusetts—we don’t brook that the South will rise again horseshit here. That sticker tells me everything I need to know about this douche-bucket, masquerading as a human. I hope he/she doesn't breed.

Then, my sister Celeste noticed some new heinousness at her local Stop & Shop (again, at right). Just great. Confederate flags and gun mags in the grocery store? Is the Boston area becoming southernized? Is Trump now popularly seen, around here, as more than a sick, twisted joke? This does not make me happy. At least, at the Stop & Shop in my neighborhood, all that I see whilst waiting to pay is the Enquirer, In Touch and other trashy rags. OK, sometimes they have the good taste and forethought to have Rolling Stone too.

BUT, in the latest Enquirer, the front page breathlessly screams at us: 93 Secret ISIS Cells HERE! Em….you know what? If you’re reporting on them, they’re not all that secret. Just so's ya know. I just love (love as in hate) the accompanying, smiling pic of Obama, implying that it’s all a big joke to him and/OR that he’s responsible for bringing these supposed SECRET cells into the US.

Christ the editors there are real pieces of work. I doubt they believe this garbage themselves—they’re just pandering to their astoundingly dimwitted, low info, scared-of-brown-people readers. You know, scare the rubes, feed their prejudices and fevered imaginations—it's always good for a bump in sales.

Happily, In Touch, at least in this issue, sticks with telling twisted tales about wealthy, insulated celebrities.

If this wasn't bad enough, I actually went down the mall (in the parlance of Boston’s South Shore) yesterday morning. Yes, I went to a giant shopping mecca on the Saturday before Christmas. Yes, I will be having my head examined later this week. I just needed to pick up a few picture frames at Target. I’d be in and out fast….right? Almost. Turns out the only major prob was finding a parking space in the vast, endless even, parking lot. The biggest crowds were at the restaurants and around the Get Yur Pic on Santa's Lap kiosk. If not for the line of 50 parents and kiddles (at 10 AM!), I’d have taken my turn on the jolly geezer’s lap too.

Finally, I was in a restaurant's cozy pub, watching the TV, while waiting for take out. Safe from all the crazy, right? The local news was on. Now, I've wondered this for some time—who dresses these people? The women, whether news readers or meteorologists were all kitted out for work parties. You know, business casual but sexy. The men? NOT biz party casual—oh my no. That's only OK for chicks—amirite or amirite (says, I imagine, the man in charge of stupid clothing choices for the on air "talent."). Every last one of the boys looked to be wearing poorly fitting suits with shirt/tie combos that had to have been picked out while drunk or flying blind. Possibly both. Clashing patterns and colors were the order of the day.

All in all, Fashion FAIL. These news shows have decent budgets, do they not? Can they not spare a few shekels for a wardrobe person? Hell’s, even I could pick out better, more professional outfits.

Next year, if a season long, voluntary coma's not possible, I think I need to spend the month on Mars or Gliese 581 D. Someplace that's hoopla free.