It’s Christmas time in the Northland! The stockings have been hung. The balls have been displayed. The poinsettias are flying off the shelves. From me to all of you, a very Merry Christmas.
Now, as is the tradition here – let’s air some grievances.
This first one goes out to people who have never used the self-checkout before standing in front of me with my four items. Listen, we’re not asking you to do calculus, here. I don’t know why you are buying 42 boxes of Little Debbies, but it’s actually not that hard. They even give you the little barcode gun now. Boop. Boop. Boop. All your Debbies are in the cart and just tap to pay.
And yet, it’s going to take you 20 minutes because you are the only person who has never seen a barcode before and you want to write a check at the self-checkout? Come on, Francis. Get it together. Hint: The barcode is always at the bottom.
While we’re on the subject of stores, let’s pour one out for the Riverside Red X. Gone are the days of day-old bread and questionable meat sitting in the butcher counter. I guess everyone goes corporate eventually and the new Red X is clean and everyone seems to be nice. I didn’t even see anyone chain smoking while buying their scratch offs. Sell-outs.
Every year there seems to be fewer and fewer homes that decorate for the holidays. That being said, the ones that DO decorate seem to be gaining an exponential amount of myrth and joy in their yards. With the advent of computerized light displays and Lowes and Home Depot starting to sell Christmas yard ornaments in July, there’s no reason your neighbor can’t have 92 pieces of flair on his yard the day after Halloween. Even those folks who put up those 12-foot skeletons just throw a Santa hat on them and call it good. I guess if you’re going to be good at something – be the best at it.
It was just a few years ago that I felt I had mastered the art of shopping when I did 100% of my Christmas shopping online. Jump to the present and I actually had to go to a store this year for an item and it was like I was walking on the moon for the first time. Remember Macy’s? I guess they still have one here. Who knew?
I hope that your holiday season has been a good one and that Christmas and New Years will be as well. May your self-checkouts be swift, may your meat be reasonably priced, yet not past the expiration date, and may your balls hang below your stockings for all to see.
Merry Christmas, everyone.
(Find Chris Kamler on all the social media applications, some more than others. If you can’t find him under his real name search for @TheFakeNed)
