Merry holidays, fa-la-la-la

O Holy Night.....

The Sacred Festival of Lights....

Merry Christmas or Happy Holidays.....

The media frenzy as we approach primaries.....

More bizarre weather events around the globe.....

So much to attend to in the world as we move through the winter solstice....

All of it critical to our survival as a country, as a conglomeration of nations, as a planet.

Our attention should be focused on all of these momentous events, each of us adding our voices to those of our neighbors, both next door and across the globe.  Right?

How long have you been reading this column, anyway? You should know better than that....

I DO want to focus on what's concerning me, the matter that keeps me awake at night, distressed and full of angst. It's these tiny bumps that have appeared all over my shins. Kind of like barnacles on the underside of a boat, but these have affixed themselves to the front of my legs, where everyone can see them. Now, THAT'S concerning me.

Plus, now I find out that other people experience the same thing as the aging process sneaks up on them and smacks them right between the eyes, laughing and pointing as we all look on in horror to our bodies morph and slide and....well, those of you who have been through this know what I'm talking about, don't  you? The least some of you could have done, though, was TELL the rest of us that this was going to happen. 


At first I thought I'd just have to live with these pesky adhesions, but then I Googled the situation. And do you know what I found out? You can scrape them off with a rough sponge, just like those little boat freeloaders can be scraped from the hull of a boat. Sweet.....I would never have thought of trying that.


Bet you didn't know that, either, did you? That's because people who have already gone down the road of birthday cakes burning to a crisp are hiding all of this information for some reason, holding it close to their drooping chests or bent backs, chuckling and whispering with glee, "Just wait.....!" until the next catastrophe strikes, the one that plays even more havoc on our bodies or our minds. 

So, go ahead and argue about whether to say Merry Christmas or Happy Holidays, or which Republican is going to come out on top when the tear gas clears and the blood stops flowing. For me, I'm going to get out my little loofah and start scrubbing.

Merry holidays, ya'll.

Age wrinkles the body. Quitting wrinkles the soul.

Douglas MacArthur 

 



























  

Big box = big pain

Last weekend, my mother and I were out Christmas shopping, hitting a number of stores in the morning before the roads became clogged with other shoppers. We ate lunch while the holiday music enticed us to spend more once we had full stomachs and our feet were rested a bit. One item eluded us, though. Something that jumps out in front of you whenever you're not looking for it, but now we couldn't seem to find one anywhere.

We ended up at the closest Big Box store. You know the one I mean. They have the best prices after all and there seems to be one in every quadrant of town. I have taken to avoiding this place at all costs, for a number of reasons. Too few employees, buggies of stock blocking the aisles. But the major reason is the sheer size of the place. First you have to walk the length of a football field in the parking lot to even get into the building. Then you're faced with a store the size of Oklahoma, not that I've ever been there, but I know it's big.

As we entered the front door (the one I'm convinced they have rigged with some fancy technological whirly gig to make you forget why you came there in the first place, so you buy lots more than you intended) of this particular SUPERSTORE version of the Big Box, I came to a dead halt. My mother ran into the back of me, in her fog of being 85 years old and probably out way too late by this time.

ACRES of stuff, as far as I could see. Farther, actually, since I couldn't even SEE the back wall of the place. Groceries to the right, off into the haze over there. Clothes in the middle, everything else to the right. And it was probably EVERYTHING ever made, from the looks of it.

A sheer exhaustion dropped down over me. I think the current vernacular would be OMG! I have the money today to buy just about anything I need, but the energy level of my younger days has deserted me. We stood there for a few minutes, trying to decide if it was worth it. Did we want that item enough to walk the distance it would require to find it?

Well, it turned out we did. So, off we went into the innards of the monster. However, I stopped the first employee I saw, the one who had her head ducked into a shelf of candles, hoping no one would notice her. I asked for the item. She stood up, gazed across the store diagonally and indicated I should follow her. Then she took off at a clip nearly impossible for me to match....me, the person who has conquered the Stairmaster at the gym. My poor mother was left shuffling in the dust, hanging on to the cart for support. But I didn't want to lose that woman who seemed to know where the item hid in the midst of millions of other items. Why don't they have a little trolley? A map, starting with YOU ARE HERE!  Maybe some of those headphones like they use in museums for walking tours. Something, anything.

After what seemed like 15 minutes, weaving around abandoned buggies, screaming kids, arguing couples, the foxhound employee stopped and pointed down the aisle in front of her. Then she was gone. Poof! Disappeared. I waited for my mother to catch up with me, and she didn't look too good by this time. Her face was pale and her breath was choppy.

Then we marched down that aisle, craning our heads right and left, up and down (yes, you have to look UP, too), until we reached the end. Puzzled, we reversed and did it again. Nothing.

It wasn't there after all. All gone. Empty space. SOLD OUT. OMG....

Is Peterson's 5 & 10 still open?



The hardest thing in life to learn is which bridge to cross and which to burn.

Frank Noble