December 2005

One of the most challenging things I find about your typical work week is the need to fall asleep when I’m not really that tired. I’m proud to proclaim that I am a “night owl”. I burn the midnight oil. I could work all night on an any given adventure, while others are in bed dreaming of their next adventure. On my ideal schedule, I’m awake until 3:30 a.m. or so and then sleep ’til noon. It just the way I’m wired.

Tomorrow is a vacation day, so normally I would indulge myself in my natural sleeping habits, but I need to head up to my grandparents’ house early in the morning to meet the movers to move my grandparents’ piano down to our house.

I just tried to force myself to sleep with no such luck. Usually I can lie in bed and sort of imagine myself someplace else; another city, another time, another outfit, and then I’ll eventually fall asleep with my recent imagination segueing into my dreams.

Tonight I had the urge to shake Earl awake and discuss a myriad of topics with him. I didn’t do that of course, as he was snoring loud enough to make the cattle in the barns two towns over restless. (“Elsie, what the hell is that noise? Is your milker clogged up again?” “No, it’s Earl snoring again.”) Normally Earl’s sounds of slumber are like music to my ears. Well, at least the noise masks the constant ringing in my ears that I have from too many ears wearing headphones as a DJ.

It’s not easy to carry on a conversation with someone that snores.

“We should talk about the Christmas shopping we have left.”

“honk honk gurgle gurgle honk honk [sound of sucking up pillow off the bed].”

I love him with all my heart but what kind of conversation is that?

So I’ll try to tire myself by surfing the internet and working on my little road geek projects and what not. Thank the Universe everything in the computer room is bolted down.

There’s nothing more important, actually more satisfying, then getting through the stack of paperwork on your desk and finding the bottom of the frivolity. Of course I’m referring to the stacks of rebate submission forms and lottery tickets stacked next to my computer.

I go crazy over rebates. I don’t know why. I find they’re more satisfying than coupons because you get something back several weeks after the purchase. Often you completely forget the arrival of your rebate check so it’s like a little bonus on a dreary day. So you had to buy an overpriced laser printer that was completely out of your budget. Big deal. You’re getting a free toner cartridge in the mail simply because you took the time to make a photocopy of your receipt, circle the item you are referencing, cut the UPC code out of the bottom of the box (complete with packing staple that was in your scissoring path), recorded the serial number of the actual printer, completed the form in impossibly legible, yet tiny letters across the thermally printed form that is no larger than 2 3/4-inches across and stuffed all that fun into a business sized envelope with made out to a business address that contains seven lines and a just a few words short of a novel.

After all the fun with the rebates, I came across the lottery tickets that haven’t been checked. Why, Earl and I could be millionaires right now and paying someone union wages to fill out our rebate forms! So off to the New York Lottery website we go, comparing and cross checking our lottery numbers with the numbers listed on the tickets. No luck though, we’re still your average bears.

Better increase our wealth with more rebates.

I was settling down during my lunch to write a clever, witty and stimulating blog entry. I was interrupted by the unmistakeable sounds of purring and the eyes of a cat who was looking for a clear landing path to my lap.

The blog entry loses. The cat wins.

I’ll write tonight.

One of the things that I’ve noticed over the past couple of years is that there doesn’t seem to be in any “holiday spirit” amongst the shoppers that are doing their Christmas shopping. I don’t know if this is confined to this area, where people are generally surly to begin with, or if this is an epidemic that has taken over the country as a whole. Nevertheless, I find it all quite depressing.

First of all, I refuse to shop on “Black Friday”. I find these pre-dawn specials quite idiotic and I’ve heard too many horror stories. Super Wal*Mart (Always White Trash, Always) advertises laptop computers for $299.99 between 5:01 a.m. and 5:36 a.m. on Black Friday. People start milling about these 24hour behemoths around 3:00 a.m. or so, awaiting the magic time when a overworked, underpaid and uninsured Wal*Mart associate croaks over the loudspeaker, “Wal*Mart associates, it’s time to remove the paper”, referring to the brown paper that is wrapped around all these bargains for the “specials hour”. Now mind you, they’ve been shreaking in newspapers, on the radio and on the tube about how wonderful all these sales are going to be for the prior two weeks, so there’s probably a couple hundred or so people awaiting their chance to pick up a $299.99 computer. They’ve been dreaming, scheming and salivating over this opportunity to get this deep-discounted computer. They’ve been wandering the store for two hours in the middle of the night waiting for this Golden Opportunity, this one chance to get the computer their rug rat has been whining about since the middle of August. They’re tired, they’re cranky, but more importantly, they’re ready to join the other folks and get this computer.

Except there’s only six of them.

And one of them is damaged.

(And I won’t mention that they run Windows. Unpatched.)

Natually, all mayhem ensues, men are making fists, women are tripping others, people in wheelchairs are getting herded away from the “fun” by ambulatory people using shopping carts as battering rams, children are crying. I have to ask, is it really worth it?

How does the song go? Oh yes, “All I Want For Christmas Is My Two Front Teeth.” Chance are you won’t have them if you go shopping on Black Friday. They’ve been knocked out by some holiday shopper, undoubtedly spreading holiday cheer, who saw you grab the laptop they had their eye on.

Earl worked late tonight so I took the opportunity to head over to my Mom’s house for supper and to fix her ailing computer. I hadn’t seen her in a while, so it was a little visit to look forward to, even if I did have to fix her Windows computer.

She recently when through some boxes of her stuff left over from when my parents separated a number of years ago, and came across a our family picture from December 1978. Since I’ve somehow become the unofficial family historian, she gave it to me. I haven’t seen this picture in a long while. I have to admit it brought a little lump to my throat since it reminded me of the rush of the holidays when I was a kid. I thought I’d share with the class.

I was 10 years old at the time.