Like the sucker I am, I volunteered yesterday to brave the crowds and finish up the Christmas shopping on behalf of the Family Suzette. Friends, if the Christian ideas on the afterlife are true, then you'd be well advised to amend your ways immediately. Those souls bound for eternal damnation will spend the hereafter in a crowded department store jostling with cranky shoppers, spoilt and fractious children, stomach-churningly schmaltzy plastic crap, obscene displays of frenzied consumption and inane Christmas carols. Hear me when I say to you that you really don't want to spend eternity this way.
Anyway... like the dutiful aunty I try so hard to be, I clenched my teeth and headed for our local shopping centre, Garden City. The person responsible for naming Garden City was clearly possessed of a mind marinated in a tart vinaigrette of irony: the only association with gardening I can make out is the notion that money grows on trees. Or perhaps it's that time spent there cultivates poor manners, aggression and an appetite for polyester clothing and acrylic fingernails.
Santa, darling that he is, had promised Miss 6 a Bratz doll - the Rubber Ho's, as my sister would have it. (Just quietly, I think she's on the money.) For the uninitiated, Bratz are ten inches of surly, heavily made-up harlotry. If they could talk - and even if they were made flesh I'm not convinced they could form coherent sentences - their vapid conversation would be heavily peppered with, "Like, y'know, what-EVERRRRR." You even have the opportunity to buy a Bratz sushi bar for them to, like, y'know, hang out in, dude. They have had a significant impact on me in that I now realise Barbie ain't so bad after all. But Santa said yes, so who the hell am I to argue with that kind of authority? So off shopping I went.
Coming soon: Bratz Botox Salon
In the not-too-distant past, public groupings of half a dozen or so were considered a Public Gathering in this state, and were illegal without a permit. Were that still the case the air would have been humming with riot police batons at the checkout yesterday. Soon-to-be-landfill bounty successfully located, I joined the snaking queues/scrums and passed the time waiting by watching my fellow shoppers shove, ram, push, grab, elbow, snap, frown, complain, bitch and spend, spend, spend. That the scene was dominated by instructions to Have a Merry Christmas almost made me smile.
Anyway... like the dutiful aunty I try so hard to be, I clenched my teeth and headed for our local shopping centre, Garden City. The person responsible for naming Garden City was clearly possessed of a mind marinated in a tart vinaigrette of irony: the only association with gardening I can make out is the notion that money grows on trees. Or perhaps it's that time spent there cultivates poor manners, aggression and an appetite for polyester clothing and acrylic fingernails.
Santa, darling that he is, had promised Miss 6 a Bratz doll - the Rubber Ho's, as my sister would have it. (Just quietly, I think she's on the money.) For the uninitiated, Bratz are ten inches of surly, heavily made-up harlotry. If they could talk - and even if they were made flesh I'm not convinced they could form coherent sentences - their vapid conversation would be heavily peppered with, "Like, y'know, what-EVERRRRR." You even have the opportunity to buy a Bratz sushi bar for them to, like, y'know, hang out in, dude. They have had a significant impact on me in that I now realise Barbie ain't so bad after all. But Santa said yes, so who the hell am I to argue with that kind of authority? So off shopping I went.
Coming soon: Bratz Botox Salon
In the not-too-distant past, public groupings of half a dozen or so were considered a Public Gathering in this state, and were illegal without a permit. Were that still the case the air would have been humming with riot police batons at the checkout yesterday. Soon-to-be-landfill bounty successfully located, I joined the snaking queues/scrums and passed the time waiting by watching my fellow shoppers shove, ram, push, grab, elbow, snap, frown, complain, bitch and spend, spend, spend. That the scene was dominated by instructions to Have a Merry Christmas almost made me smile.
2 comments:
Aargh! To be sure, the yuel fuel this year is credit card injected, carb-loaded consumerism... why not become an anthiest and give a wedgie for Christmas?
Well, anon, I was raised atheist, but have been unaware until now that wedgies were a part of that tradition. I'll be adopting it as of now, and don't doubt that my life will be richer for it.
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