Menage' et CLAUS

 Yeah I admit it, as I have gotten older I have tried to embrace hip modern culture. These days, more often than not, I use extension cord belts to cinch up my gut instead of ol' fashioned suspenders, stack actual used Campbells soup cans on my mantle instead of those ugly Warhol lithos, and the pillowcases usually match the color of the sheets on my king-sized inflatable cot. 

Like every Christmastime, my wife digs around in the attic to find some appropriate holiday decor to grace our space. If I'm lucky she will uncover at least one stale candy cane that has survived being entombed in a green or red storage container along with whatever gifts the mice have left us throughout the year. The goal is to release a herd of Rudolph stuffed animals, Frosty embroidered wash cloths, and my personal favorite - a GIANT parachute nylon, stuffed Santa pillow. The wife finds great pleasure in perching this monster softy Santa in the middle of our bed as sort of a bundling board blockade tribute to the season. 

Big deal - the guy is very jolly and adds some extra cheer to our meager bed dressings since we wash with Tide, but I'm not sure I am hip enough to have another fat dude with a flacid red hat and tighty tights in bed with my wife too! After all, it has taken me almost two score years to score 1 kid with my wife so it is clear my love life does not need any more distractions. Further, I am not sure how many more crumb-generators our mattress can handle since myself and the bed bugs have pretty healthy appetites and ugly full bibs.

So no matter how hip n' cool I long to be I guess by the 1st of the new year, I need to kick that seasonal Serta-Santa back up to his attic sleigh-bed. I certainly don't need a stupid 3rd wheel pillow-pal in my life especially when his head is even softer than mine. Hey, I'm no dummy - there is NO way I want my wife getting too used to having more than one gray-beard balding dome leaving dimpled dents in our memory foam. Now my only concern is how am I going to block all that midnight geezer-snoring ... obviously emanating from the ATTIC. 

Happy New Year!

Christmas Stalking Showdown

Once again I did not get what I wanted for Christmas and it makes me cranky. Every year since I was a kid I have waited up late to try and catch Santa breaking and entering and once again he somehow gets by my defenses. Don’t get me wrong, I love almost everything he and the reindeer leave (except for those raisins on the roof), but it bugs me that no matter what macho thing I do he still gives me the slip (a frilly one from Victoria Secret).

I’m not sure what Santa has to fear from me other than I resemble Rudolph’s pal, the Bumble – except I’m a bit harrier and still have a few of my own teeth left. Oh he is probably just bitter because I refuse to let one of his creepy mini-minions, the elf on the shelf, stare at me all night while I sleep. Geez have a heart Santa, I already fend off spiders, mice, and bed bugs, around this dump – so is it any surprise I want to extend a middle digit to one of your little midget’s too?

Is it too much to ask that the graying fat man in the red and white jammies, other than me, use the back door without ringing the bell, just like the rest of my hillbilly clan-family. This year, simply so there won't be any mistakes, I even stuffed foam up my chimney to keep the chill out; and let me tell you that’s a lot more challenging than those thin thermometers. Yes I was really prepared this holiday with candy cane cameras, bright landing lights, and even a few cookie-claymore trip lines to give St. Nick  a sign it’s the right time to finally face ME - the grim wreather.

At this point I am starting to doubt if there is, or ever was a REAL Santa at all. I have actually been to the North Pole but I never saw a red-striped, bearded benefactor there or at any of the other three spikes which hold up my tent. Maybe all this seasonal stewing n’ stalking I am doing of St. Nick is a waste of time? Clearly I need to give up on hunting down Santa and his elusive elves and just concentrate on something far easier to swallow like the ‘Fountain of VERMOUTH’!

Color Me Crusty

Maybe it has always been this way but am I the only one who sees the world through rose and green colored 3D glasses around the last quarter of the year? The truth is that as of late even orange and black Halloween is also getting flocked and being horned in on by rutting Rudolph and his deer friends. Thank goodness Valentine’s red letter day and the white, red n’ Independence blue have stayed true and somehow have avoided being elf-hijacked too.

Yes, apparently now Christmas is not just one day of the year but in fact extends its over-ripe aroma to all of Fall and hangs around a little too long like that last plate of dark-meat leftovers from Thanksgiving. No just because I set a few mousetraps in the attic around the gold garland and stored ornamental rainbow balls doesn’t mean I’m the pied piper of gripey Grinches at all. But honestly, what other holiday totally consumes white light to make life costlier, less productive and an even deeper black hole than it already is?

I don’t see Chanukah getting in my way too much, but  then again even if I were Jewish the wife would never allow a cold gassy giant like me to bounce around next to a bunch of lit candles in a tattered flannel t-shirt. Ol’ Cinco de Mayo and Groundhog’s day don’t ordinarily tax too much of my tiny brain twists either, though inexplicably now I am hungry for five pork sandwiches. The outlier eggy Easter tries to rudely intrude Spring with its funny bunnies, fuzzy ducks, and PEEPing treats too. But in the end with only a month of brown choco hype n’ hubbub to last, even a Winter wonderland whiner like me can frown, bear it, and stand fast.  

Actually I think most of my crusty Christmas recriminations have more to do with my personal geezer leanings rather than society’s oblivious overreach toward an overbearing holiday marketing niche. After all even this Scrooge still gets sucked up by Santa’s jolly jingle and rebuff of we - the far less jovial. It’s just when your hair and skin begins to turn pasty-white like Frosty’s filling, elderly life turns exceedingly telling. Especially so when you’re constantly reminded for months on end that you now need those colorful candy canes for walking rather than to eat as oh so sweet treats!

Holiday Color Combo

Though the weather has been turning cooler, the last time I checked it still said September on most calendars except for apparently the ones in ALL stores that sell the things. Can it be that my beady peeps are deceiving MEeps or is Halloweeny’s orange and black getting devil-horned in on by Christmasy red and green.  Like that weird spiced ice cream with pie chunks at Dairy Queen, this odd combo thing must be a seasonal fad because last year I saw the same color palette except it was all growing on my shriveled, month-old, rotting pumpkin.

Since both of us have never liked crunches or sticky situations, I am not sure how candy canes or I am going to handle the seasonal food and confections situation with all this new age celebratory melding. It takes a big brained elf with waxy lips, and popcorn balls in hand to be able to comprehend and consume ‘toasted pumpkin seeds’ and choco Chanukah gelt all in the same month of the year. I already knew that Frosty was keeping warm by dipping in the cider more often than proper but I never guessed that batty Drac had tuned his toothy straws toward the tannenbaum taste of holiday nog.

I’m all for doubling up colorful calendar red lettered days like Black Friday and White sales, as long as you leave my birthday out of it since I already have all the wrinkles and wisdom I can stand. You can also skip two-timing delivering the letters of any color from the greeting card people since at $5 a pop, they have obviously ALREADY doubled down on their prices, lack of creativity, and hackneyed double entendres. At least glossy cards can do double-duty over email in one sense by doubling my toilet paper stash – though they never seem as soft or absorbent as the bevy of monthly mailed bills do.

Since I typically give out cookies that taste like dog treats anyway, my fireplug and I are actually looking forward to the Wolfman visiting on Halloween dressed as a harried Keebler Elf this year. To get in the combo spirit and if the caribou union will allow it, maybe even ol’ St. Nick himself could slip in a few flying monkeys with the reindeer train this December. Of course only as long as everyone is well mannered, fling-free, and adequately diapered - since due to inflation, Santa’s oversized red bag doesn’t hold as much stuff as it used to. 

Dinner Drop-ins

After years of salsa abuse and my own special brand of blackened anything cooking, I have developed a fairly tough gut for dining. So pick your peppers and dose me with the feisty ghosties or hurry with your spicy curry – it won’t matter ‘cause I can take it. Yes my steel drum of a tum not only weighs a ton but it’s lined with pig iron too so I’m forged from Diet COKE and squeal until filled with grease, but am rarely nauseous.

Now don’t prove me a liar by placing my puffy pink posterior on a tip-toppy yacht in awful sloppy chop. Don’t roll me in coasters that are stead-fast boasters over their belly-churning loops and adrenaline swoops, best fit for gung-ho young souls. No, as long as my bloated bobble-head remains gray-side up, spin-less, and vertigo-free, signs of chyme will never reach the white light of day, pester guests, or decorate unsuspecting shirts with regurgitant leis.

So with this in mind clearly there is little risk in admiring the scenery of my neighbor’s gorgeous greenery. What possibly could turn the tides of my insides while un-canning hot-plate condensed soup or tossing cold-bowls of shivering salad for simple supper sustenance? Logically nothing, except  the bright, green-bladed grassy knoll next door at first blush is not as peaceful as it seems, for secrets hide within its lush brush – the stuff of darkest dreams.

Only two unbridled rhinos roam this land yet clearly freely frequent its open spaces looking for a bank in need of very big high yield deposits. What turned my face of fascination to one of ashen was the horror of my neighbor in tippy-toe terror, repeatedly ringing her yard armed with a fanged feculence trap, mapping unappetizing tubular Gigantor scat.  Suddenly with every weighty skewer of manure showed, my sturdy stomach’s hunger bowed, and soon made an up-turned pitch towards worry, in need of a pink Pepto potation cure in a hurry. Since Christmas is far away a recurring fear of coal stowed in my red n’ green hearth sock should not rank priority today.  But given a possible premonition from my neighbor’s frighteningly saggy baggy collection, my fireplace should shudder in fear, if Santa’s hefty sack is stocked to the top with a year end full from eight regular reindeer!

Toil of the Soil

It always amazes me that as soon as the sun lingers a little longer in the sky and frost turns to dew, me and my fellow suburbanites head for the hardware store for endless buckets of multicolored mulch. Oddly for such a truly ‘green’ product made up of chunks of recycled tree branches, bark, and stumps, the stuff seems to be seen in all colors but GREEN? Who knows, maybe I lichen the look of a mold covered flower bed to match my rotting roof and anyway what’s so wrong with pairing a little red n’ green for a Springtime Christmas scene?

I wonder if this annual obscene dirt-dance offends those of us who struggle for a meal or an occasional hosing off of their darkest nooks and crookiest of crannies? After all vast vats of cash are routinely exchanged in May so my ‘burb-bound milky-skinned ilk can don crisp pairs of button-down blues, farmer tans, and make handsome houses of ‘SILT-repute’. It bothers me that I’m dumb enough also to join-in and waste gas by hauling around big brown bags of musty-have mulches, simply to cover up my slightly ‘less-brown’ mounds of soil in the planters and gulches.

Since my yard’s dandelion and crabgrass needs are always satisfied and not pressing, it’s unclear why society has scorn for the already in-place brown mud and dust made of nature’s fav top-dressing. Most anything already grows in the stuff and its use results in less of a stress-y mess and all the loss from expensive mass distribution and compost-y cost.  I guess there’s good reason, like shy deer won’t try our former glory-plant’s gnawed-off leftover stalk, without the scent of fresh mulched earth nearby with ‘choco’ dye on the top.  

But never fear there is an upside to all of this mind-numbing mulching since my neighbors actually have new-found respect for me and are amazed that I can take on such a big job quickly without outside labor. While I appreciate the kudo-reaping and end results of my solo grounds-keeping, it’s actually no big deal to my better half who could do just the same alone in my stead. Yes the wife and I have similar down-to-earth independent natures and are always up for gritty challenges so she'll not be impressed . . .  since in many times past, she has encouraged me to soil myself fast!

Grinch-mas Wish

Usually when ‘Grinchy’ companies run short on glam, glee n’ glitter as well as biz sense, they hire a consultant to reign in their silly sleigh problems and swing for the fence. It seems Christmas is getting earlier every year, though my presents are smaller and less costly I fear; clearly a reminder for the season is due, before this infestation affects more holidays in view. The last thing I need is New Years on a budget, or still worse yet - a Valentines heart more bleeding than delectably rich choco chocolate.

What’s wrong is that people have forgotten the season and what it’s all about and that it’s for ‘Pleasin’. Oh sure good cheer, bright lights, and snow are all fine, but the longer the receipt then the better the time. Just give me large boxes and fat-filled candy too, since excess  and bigger are always better it’s true.

The REAL Santa is great if you only want one, but legions of red bucket fingering ding-ringers are always more fun after given some rum. Reindeer never smell quite as nice in person, unless you have eggs with the fried n’ sausage-fied tastier version. Who needs to give and a softy spot for the poor, when MY need for lofty stuff and golden swag is importantly MORE. 

Now don’t get me wrong I wish no hit and miss ‘Grinch-mas’ to your nutcrackers or you, nor do I expect special days to run smooth on cue too. I just wish the material world to remember it all, that there’s far more to the season than faith, family, and charity tales so tall.  Remember my practical mantra to take my advice, whatever you buy for yourself,  buy early, buy often, and buy me at least TWICE!

MERRY GRINCH-MAS!!!

Red Letter Days

Out of all the holidays, July 4^th used to be my favorite because I could blow stuff up (other than pool toys) without going to jail. My second favorite holiday is Halloween since I’m free to walk among the living and scare kids on one night as much as they scare me daily over the rest of the year. If I do a good job of tricking treatsters, I can score even MORE sugar than I normally get when dressed as a weird geezer slogging to my neighbors with a sweet recipe in hand. 

Next on that list is Thanksgiving because it truly is a day of simple pleasures like stuffing bread into the dark headless cavity of poultry and buttering up loose pink skin (sometimes on the turkey too). St. Patrick’s isn’t bad when you’re as partial to pinching as I am and VETerans day is really special because like most folks, I love patriotic pets.   So what about the status of big ‘gifty’ days like Christmas, the day when I was hatched, and of course everybody’s fav holiday - tax day on April 15th. 

Christmas-time feels more like a noisy reindeer race starting with Kwanzaa (which I assume is on black Friday), seven days of candles pitchfork-perched in the middle, and ends  by cleaning up annoying tinsel, enormous credit card and travel bills. Beyond Santa’s blinding BLURR on my saddle so many taxes are due by New Years, which means by mid April I’m sick of giving the government or anyone ANYTHING, except maybe an oversized foam finger.

My birthday dropped a few notches at a young age when my parents FORGOT what date I was actually born on and made me wait sleeplessly in anticipation until the day AFTER to celebrate. Now my b-day is more of a celebration of still having thick wild hair, though I’m not sure if it counts as much when it knots endlessly from my ears, eyebrows, nose and toes? Don’t worry though I intend to seek revenge when my folk’s old-fogey faculties become completely compromised by the ravages of time. Yes, I will simply write only ONE loving letter to my parent’s filled with praise and prose. I intend to thoughtlessly enthrall them with my attention and affections revealed in that same letter OVER and OVER again for every holiday. Now that’s what I call a real ‘READ letter day’ – of course, as long as I can remember what I wrote in that letter the last time so I can write it AGAIN!