Tuesday, December 11, 2012

Confession

     Sure, the song says, "It's the most wonderful time of the year."  For me, the "holiday season," Christmas especially, is an absolutely terrible time of the year, in which my only goal is to get through it with the least possible amount of unpleasantness.  Frikkin' ghastly.

     I do try to buy kewl gifts for the younger family members.  Kids expect that and none of their parents are especially well-to-do.

     But I gotta tell ya, if I didn't have family and friends, I'd ignore the whole thing.  It's a nightmare, a constant invitation to maudlin maunderings from too-related persons best kept at arm's length or unwanted drama in uncomfortable circumstances.  My motto is "show up, shake hands, shove off," hopefully before getting sucked into any who's angry at who, carping that family member N is manipulative and who Y may or may not be sleeping with.  Gah.  You can't even keep track of them all without a program, of which there isn't one.

     Work isn't much better, with social-climbing parties and "secret Santa"ing and plenty of pressure to Officially And Publicly Help The Poor.  Damned if I will if I gotta pray on streetcorners to do it; oh, I'll help 'em, but not any way I'll talk about or even post here. That's between me and them, a matter of beneficence, not boasting.

     (Just to make the season better, my car messed up yesterday, darned near got me killed on my way to work by stalling in the middle of a street I was crossing and cost me just shy of $400 to get back running, that after turning down the replacement catalytic converter [$$$!] and "fuel injector service package" [$$$!] in favor of new spark plugs & related.  Had to explain to the poor chap that no matter if "it was throwing codes," his service plan would effectively total my car and I'd prefer to address the problems one step at a time.  -- Relatedly, the good mechanic at that place is MIA, replaced by a guy who struggles to print an invoice.  Not goin' back; if the car does need more work, I'll at least go to a place where they'll BS me with more finesse.)

    

11 comments:

  1. For better or worse, my Christmas is a much smaller circle of people personally and the company thing is a lunch at work. I hear you on all of that though, it took years to burn that down to the crucible it is now.

    The car? Oh, good luck with that.

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  2. Hail kindred spirit! I thought I was pretty much the only one that got grumpy this time of year. Grumpy because it's about time for the annual battles to begin. You know the ones:

    Christan: "They won't let us put a Nativity Scene on the courthouse lawn!"

    Neutral Theist: "Well, THEY started it; they're trying to sing CHRISTMAS SONGS at the school Winter Festival Program!"

    Third Party: "Happy Hanukkah!"

    Christian and N.T.: "Shaddup, you pushy Jew!"

    Almost makes me hope the Mayans got it right. Hope the shot in the dark takes care of your car problems. If you locate your UA mechanic, give serious thought to chaining him up in the cellar. That or promise him some of your cooking.

    But in any case, a joyous season to you, Tam, the cats and all your readers, regardless of belief.



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  3. FWIW, last time I had a car stall on me in the middle of the street, it turned out to be a distributor cap & rotor. Car went from "barely run" to "race ready" in under 5 minutes and $12. I am still amazed it made so much difference.

    $.02 Good luck!

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  4. Merry Christmas, Happy Hannakka & qwaszy Quanzza! That cover everybody? Oh,yeah; uh, Happy Festivus....get a sun lamp, X, it might help with the holiday blues.

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  5. "distributor cap & rotor"

    How quaint! Did you check the jets in the carburettor, too? ;)

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  6. You can't even keep track of them all without a program, of which there isn't one.

    There is, but it's as bad as the situation itself: facebook.

    Good luck and try not to hospitalize any of the migrane-vendors at the retail doors unless you do it with their own bell.

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  7. Re: Tam @ 8:30,"How quaint"
    Cut it out,some us still have caps and rotors!!
    Bill

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  8. It could be worse. You could have my job. Which is selling shoes in a department store.

    And of course, to add to the jollity, I'm Jewish, and this is just another OPH (other people's holiday).

    Every year, at some point before 12/24, I come to the conclusion that Scrooge was right the first time.

    Of course, then we wouldn't have had one of the best lines in literature He laughed in his heart, and that was enough for him.

    Kishnevi

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  9. I'm with you. Take all of the above and add in the end of the year having some seriously negative emotional associations for me (if anything really bad is going to happen to me, it'll happen in late November or December, guaranteed), and I spend the whole damn month in a ball of pointless anxiety.

    Bring on January. Now. Please.

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  10. Flo King wrote it up brown: "I'll BE Lone For Christmas, You Can Bet Your Ass..."

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