adjective christmas punctuation

IT OCCURS TO ME as I sit writing The Novel in the Gift Shop (shortened internally to GS, as with everything, because we either love abbreviations or are simply lazy; also my boss always says Gift Shoppe, gift shop-ay) at my Day Job, that the 12 gifts of christmas are pretty much all avian in nature. I’ve seen the memes of course, but it’s really quite shocking as I listen to it on our questionable retail christmas playlist. In execution, the bird song is perhaps much better than Mariah Carey’s hit (I have not heard it this year, knock on wood, thank the fae), but, conceptually, it is considerably more terrifying. 

It should be noted, I do consider myself a bird enthusiast. I enjoy them. Enjoyment, as in seeing or hearing and briefly wondering what bird that is but never checking the dusty book on my shelf or the app I downloaded on my phone. I have so few apps - just another way to try and fix myself - and think perhaps if it sits long enough I will eventually open it and learn a skill or something and suddenly be a better (bird) person.

As a bird person, I briefly consider flying away and remember I am sitting at a desk, waiting for the phones to turn on so I can process no less than 800 million gift memberships.

I remember hearing somewhere that most made-up statistics use the number 8. I don’t know if I did it before hearing that, but I always do it now, mostly unconsciously. I wish I knew how often I made up statistics, so I could use the number 8 eighty percent of the time. For now, it will have to be eight hundred percent of the time because I fear the mental gymnastics anyone would have to do to follow that joke is simply unachievable since the not-fake statistics are solely inside my head. Also because I refuse to do math to get the not-fake statistics in the first place. I didn’t take statistics.

Even at The University, I somehow managed to make astronomy and psychology count towards those pesky mandatory math credits. I joke to my best friend via text that I am a mathless bimbo. I notate bimbo as “pr?” for problematic, like a teacher going “sp?” for spelling over and over again. She laughs “I love how we’ve reclaimed bimbo.”

I don’t know that we have. But I also acknowledge we have bigger battles to fight in the patriarchy department these days and avoid getting into the semantics with her.

Our questionable retail christmas playlist at the Day Job jumps to yet another obscure 50s song sung by some whiny tot (read: the Before picture of an old crotchety Jan 6th insurrectionist). I think this playlist is supposed to keep the geriatrics in the GS/gift shop-ay calm and docile, like playing a flute for Cerberus or however it goes. I think, really, the baby boomers are so genuinely fucked up. Likely because of this music. Have you seen the old commercials, too? They were this close to playing with sticks and hoops while being beaten by their alcoholic fathers and somehow think they had it better. 

Of course you don’t need therapy, Robert. Yes, Robert, your wife is a fucking nag. The old ball and chain the old ball and chain the old ball and chain. Yes, Robert, we have a senior discount. I, too, am so happy I can save you money on your 80th recurring subscription, but I can’t buy a house. Yes, let’s play “What’s My Ethnicity” - of course it’s your favorite game - hint, I’m just black and white and American all over. The punchline to a joke if I could make it one. Yes, my great great great someone or other was enslaved and the one on the other side probably did the enslaving (pr?), thanks for noticing.

The playlist changes again to some (probably boomer) song about a Christmas Island. Incredibly, this is not the first song I have heard with a tropical christmas theme in the last hour, yet they manage not to appropriate Jamaican accents this time. A step up.

If you’re wondering what Christmas music I do prefer, you would be right to assume the Grinch soundtrack, perhaps surprised to learn I am a Rat Pack supremacist, and not at all surprised to learn George Michael’s Last Christmas is at the top of the list. Don’t ask me about the Vienna Boys Choir - it’s complicated.

I hold true that nobody writes Christmas music because they want to. They write it for the money, and maybe on a deeper level, to inflict psychological damage. The latter attributed especially to Paul McCartney.

I do not, however, celebrate the HOLIDAY(™). I would sympathize with Scrooge if he wasn’t the literal actual fucking problem. 

re: the problem - every CEO monopoly monocle guy raking in all of the average folks’ monopoly money every winter while the suicides spike. Joy to the world 1 percent (not 80). Also, if it matters, the Baby Jesus was a fucking brat. Mary was probably the worst liar to ever exist, but her dunce (pr?) husband was even worse and had to go and make it a whole religion. This version of the origin story is the only way I cope with the Religion as a whole - which I find to be a cancerous stain on the world (pr? but I can say it because my dad who loved christmas and Baby Jesus died of Really Bad cancer and it's still horrible for me, right?).

Bah humbug. I clock out in three hours and 45 minutes on the dot. I actually do love it here, I just probably need a nap.