Bats In My Belfry

Bats are a most valuable creature of nature. One single little brown bat can eat up to 1,000 mosquitoes in a night. Imagine how many more bugs there'd be on those hot summer nights without bats.  A small colony of 150 big brown bats can keep in check over 33 million root worms every year, making them an asset to farmers. Bats are also pollinators of many different plants around the world, such as the barrel cactus and saguaro cactus of the American southwest. Professional growers depend on bats to pollinate bananas, almonds, peaches and other crops. And let's not forget a most important 'product' of bats: bat crap! Entire ecosystems thrive at the bottom of bat caves in the guano (it's such a special crap that it even has its own name), and it has one of the richest nitrogen counts of any fertilizer. Having said all of that, let me also say I hate the little bastards!

Let me explain. As long as the little devils stay outside, they're great. The minute they get inside of a house I'm living in, they're not!  I was raised in an old two-story house that no matter what my Dad did to repair the place or fill in any possible ways of entrance, there was at least a bat or two in the house every year. Of course the fact that the house was surrounded by bat condominiums, big elm trees (before dutch elm disease killed them all) made sure there were a lot of bats in our neck of the woods. We'd sit outside at night in the summer to beat the heat and watch them swoop down to catch the bugs and all. My older brothers would get brooms to try and catch them, but bats are real good about avoiding brooms.

That's one reason why they're so hard to catch when they get in the house. Almost impossible to do when they're on the fly. When they roost on something is when you can nail 'em. That is if you're not like me and peeing down both legs. I admit, I hate them in the house. Scared to DEATH of them in the house. Despite me being a big man, despite my Dad telling me they were more afraid of me than I was of them (a total impossibility I might add), and no matter how much logic I use on myself, I've finally decided to just admit my batophobia. Everyone's afraid of something, I suppose.

I've got many a tale to tell about bats in the house from my childhood. But with my Dad home, I knew that the most fearless bat-catcher in the world would save me. I can remember the hot summer  nights, tossing and turning in the sweat-dampened sheets trying to sleep, when I'd see a bat flitting over my bed.  I know  the common little brown bat is small, but when you're a kid scared to death of them and one flits over your head in bed they look as big as a buzzard.  I'd pull the sheet over my head, and scream bloody murder. My Dad would holler out of their bedroom "What's wrong?" and I'd holler back, "It's a b-b-b-b-b-b-b-bat!"

So Dad would mutter a cuss word or two, get up out of bed and grab a pair of pants or blue jeans draped over the foot board of my bed. He'd stand in the hallway in the dim light, waiting for the bat to fly by. As soon as the bat showed up, Dad would knock him down with the pants or shirt, usually on the first try. He'd throw the shirt or pants over the bat, reach in underneath it and grab the bat. The damned thing was screeching and making clicking noises that sent chills down my spine. He'd take the bat downstairs, go outside, put the bat on the sidewalk with a brick on top of it and step on it to kill it. This was way before the days of bat-protection laws. He'd then come back upstairs and go to bed. As for me, I'd lay in bed bug-eyed and wouldn't sleep for a week.

The most embarrassing bat incidents happened when I was a teenager.  The house I grew up in had no bath tub, but it did have a shower in the basement. I would shower down there, and every once in awhile there'd be a bat in the basement. It usually happened in the winter. Dad told me that the bats would come in from outside for the winter and roost in the basement, kind of hibernating, and the warmth from the hot shower would wake them up. Whatever the reason, the results of a bat in the shower were always the same. A mad, dash up the basement stairs, sometimes with a towel, sometimes bare naked.  I had no choice in the matter. The tell-tale outlines of bat wings made my feet move a lot faster than my brain.

But without a doubt the strangest bat incident happened when I was out of school and working. My parents and little brother went on vacation, and I had to stay home because of my job.One day there was a knock at the door, it was my older brother. To make a very long story short, seemed he got into a little mischief, wrecked his car and needed a place to crash for a few days while his wife got over her angry.  I agreed as long as he promised to mind his p's and q's and stay out of 'mischief'.

A few days later I came home in the evening, opened the door and went into the living room and turned on the light and the TV.  As soon as I did, a bat swooped out of the darkness of the kitchen. I ran out of the house as fast as I could, and went to my sister's house. I picked up my brother-in-law and we went back to catch the critter, but he was just as scared as I was, so he told me to spend the night with them and we'd take care of it in the morning.

After I'd been at their house for awhile, I suddenly remembered my brother. He was working second shift and would be home at 11:00 PM. It was a quarter after eleven, so I figured I best call him and tell him about our 'visitor'.  He answered the phone and I asked him, "You see our visitor yet?"  He didn't know what I was talking about, but then I heard him cuss and heard the phone hit the wall. So now I had no choice. Leaving my brother alone in a house with a bat was not a good thing. I had to go home and make sure the house was still in one piece.

When I turned the corner to get home I could hear a racket all the way down the street. It was coming from our house.  Every light was on in the house. The TV, radio, stereo, were all going full volume. My brother met me at the door with an old German army helmet on, a fish landing net in one hand and a badminton racket in the other.  All the noise was to "mess up the bat's radar",  the lights were to blind it, the net and badminton racket were to try and catch it, and the helmet was to keep the bat out of his hair.

We searched the house for awhile with no luck. Then my brother found the bat hanging on the bathroom light fixture and with one swoop of the landing net caught the devil! He took it outside and put it under an old washtub until morning. By this time it was past midnight, and we both went to bed.

My Dad was a wise man in a lot of things, and one of the bits of wisdom he gave me was that when you catch a bat that's been in the house, don't let it go. It'll find its way back in. My brother helped prove the validity of that when he got a twinge of sympathy for the bat and let it loose the next morning, because a few weeks later it was back in the house. This time, Dad and Mom were back from vacation, and old dead-eye Dad caught the creepy thing and disposed of it.  Now you may ask how I know it was the same bat. Could've been another one, right?  Nope. It was the same one. This is my story, and I'm sticking to it...

Waging The War On Floor Boogers

I'm a house bitch, and I'm proud of it! I'm retired from the rat race and live with a woman that has a teenage son. She works, he's in school, so it makes sense for me to do the domestic chores.

Most of them I'm pretty good at. I'm a great cook, can clean fairly well, although my SO does bring her female fastidiousness into the equation, which is not always a bad thing. I am a male, after all, and on occasion I can lapse back into the Land Of Slobbinia. One thing I don't do much of is laundry. I know how to do it, but she prefers to do it her way, so I do the right thing and let her do it.

Some of the chores I like, some I don't. The one I really HATE the most is cleaning the floors. The big house we've got has no carpeting, which we both like. My allergies don't bother me nearly as much without carpeting, and with three cats, hardwood floors are easier to keep clean of the oodles of kitty hair that's shed. So most of the floor cleaning I do with either a mop for the tile floors in the kitchen and bathroom, or the pads on a stick that pick up all the dirt. You know, the one that uses the Blondie tune in their old ad, "One way, or another, I'm, gonna getcha,getcha, getcha, getcha!"   A good sweeping with a regular broom to get the big gobs of cat hair and a once-over with the 'Getcha' and the floor's usually pretty clean. And it's not that I hate the chore so much. it's those nasty floor boogers that I hate.

You know what I'm talking about. Those stray pieces of lint, onion skin, toenail, paper, etc. that hide in the nooks, crannies and crevices of floor boards, tiles and mop boards. Those nasty flecks of whatever that won't pick up with a broom, mop or floor pad. Those devious, dirty little bastards that don't show up until you've emptied the mop water or put away the broom.  Every single time I try to make a floor spotless, the little demons come out and thumb their noses at me.

I've tried sweeping, mopping, swiffering, vacuuming, everything short of a blowtorch to alleviate them. All to no avail.  Oh, there may be fewer in number after my onslaught, but some always remain.  Perhaps I'm just being too fussy. After all, a large expanse of floor clean enough to dine off of save for a few malignant floor boogers here and there isn't so bad. Is it? YES IT IS! Clean is clean, and if there's any floor boogers hanging around, IT AIN'T CLEAN!

So consider this essay a declaration of war, floor boogers! I do not know where you come from, but I know where I will send you! Down the drain, in the garbage, out of my door with the rest of the garbage! Your mission is to try and drive me to distraction, to make me 'break', to force me to let you live and prosper so you can take over the house! But it will not happen! I will NEVER break. I will NEVER give in.  Fair warning, floor boogers! I play rough, and I play for keeps!

Are You Nuts?

This winter has been a nasty one for a lot of folks. To say that I am sick and tired of it would be a gross understatement. The past four days here it has been gloomy, cold as hell, spitting snow. But today, finally the sun came out in all its glory. The temp about 10 degrees. So I bundled myself up and went out for a walk.

There's a school up the street from me with a 1/4 mile running track. The walk to the track and back and one trip around the track is about a half mile. I haven't walked much the past few months, so a half mile would be far enough until I get my walking legs back. On the way back home, my back started to hurt, my knees were giving out, I was colder than a well-digger's ass, and my nose was running like an open spigot. But the sun was so bright and awesome, it was worth it.

When I got to my porch, I didn't really feel like going inside. So I sat on a lawn chair on the porch. Well, the sun moved off my porch, and it was pretty dumb to sit there in the shade in 10 degree weather. So I picked up the chair and moved it to the center of the driveway where the sun was still full. I sat and enjoyed the looks of the people that drove by in their cars, and waved to a few of them. I saw my neighbor from across the street come out with just a sweater on. He hugged himself as he tried to stay warm and crossed the street.

"What the hell are you doing?" he asked.
"What the hell does it look like? I'm sunning myself."
He shivered. "Do you know what the temperature is?"
"Yeah"
"What's the matter with you? Are you nuts?"
I took off my sunglasses and looked at him. "Let me get this straight. You're out in almost single-digit weather with just a sweater on and you ask me if I'm nuts? "

He shook his head and went back across the street. I sat in my chair about a half an hour, until jack frost did more than just nip my nose, he downright chawed on it. I went in the house and saw my little dog was asleep in the chair, belly-up. She didn't bother to get up, but wagged her tail a few times. I rubbed her belly, she went back to sleep. All the excitement had made me tired too, so I laid down on the couch to get some zzzz's.

As I laid there, I thought about that old song, "What The World Needs Now Is Love". I agree with the sentiment, but in our modern day it can be pretty damned hard to keep love in your heart when you're working your ass off, dead on your feet, and got a lot of worries on your mind. So maybe before the world can even handle all that love stuff, what the world needs right now is a nap. Not just a 10-minute power nap either. But a belt-unbuckling, pillow cuddling, mouth-slobbering, dead-to-the-world nap. For at least an hour. So I took one. I wish all of you could have done the same. And some people call me nuts...

The Ring And The Finger - Any Old Finger

Most everyone knows the tradition of wearing an engagement ring or wedding ring on the left hand. As to which finger, we all know which finger. It's a matter of which finger we want to call it. For some, it is the fourth finger of the left hand, the ring finger. For those that have a penchant for accuracy (and perhaps hair-splitting) they say it is the third finger of the left hand. The thumb is not technically considered a finger, but a thumb. An opposing thumb, to be more exact. And we all know that a finger is not a thumb, and a thumb is not a finger.

Now that we've got that out of the way, there is a current trend for finger rings to be worn on any finger on either hand, not just the ring finger. Rings are even worn on toes, but those are not finger rings. They are toe rings, and are off the subject. So what is the subject? The symbolism that goes with a ring on a specific finger, that's what. I've read a lot about it, some of it interesting, some of it pretty far out there. So here's my tongue in cheek interpretations of wearing rings on specific fingers. Take it or leave it:

Thumb - Forget about the thumb technically not being a finger. For this discussion, it's a finger. The thumb is the finger of willpower, so some say. It is typically thought of as being separate from the fingers, (again with the hair-splitting!) thus is a sign of independence. It is also a finger of power. Thumbs up or thumbs down as an example. So a person wearing a ring on the thumb is independent, has strong willpower, is powerful, and is a hair splitter, best I can figure out.

Index Finger - First finger or second, as you like. The finger that is wagged and pointed. It literally reeks of authority. And also stubbornness, being bossy, being condescending, and the need to be in control. All positive attributes if you're trying to bully your way through life. A ring worn on this finger means you are an authority freak and want everyone to know it (as if they didn't already).

Middle Finger - or second finger, as you like. The finger of identity. It is the strongest finger of the hand, and can also represent a tremendously large ego. No wonder it is the finger used for the well-known obscene sign of defiance and disregard. A ring on this finger can mean a whole slew of different things, so the poobahs say. But my interpretation is that a ring worn on this finger reveals that the wearer is nothing more than a vulgar egomaniac.

Fourth Finger - Or third finger, or ring finger. The tradition of wearing an engagement ring and wedding ring on the ring finger of the left hand is not universal. Some cultures wear it on the right hand. in either case, the ring finger is a symbol of creativity. It is also the least independent of all the fingers. Because the vast majority of people that wear rings wear them on the fourth finger, there is no end to all of its positive attributes, and hardly any bad attributes associated with it. I wear a ring on the ring finger of each hand, so I agree.

Little Finger - Or fourth finger, or pinkie. The finger of relationships. It is farthest from the thumb, and we all know that the thumb is the 'hooray for me' finger. So the pinkie is opposite from meaning from the thumb. Despite its smaller size, it is a big symbol about anything the person wearing a ring on it wants to acknowledge, most of it flattering.

After all that, there remains but one more possibility, one more symbolic reason people wear a ring on a finger. This possibility applies to any finger of any hand. Perhaps, just maybe, despite all the new age malarkey and abba dabba silliness, people just like to wear rings. On any finger. Period.

When Did Humans Start Wearing Clothes?

There are many schools of thought and belief about the origins of humans. Some purely religious, some purely scientific, some mix the two. Regardless of which school of thought, it seems obvious that the first humans on this earth lived in warm climates. I suppose there are those who will argue about this, but I am proceeding under the assumption that the first humans lived in a climate that was sufficiently warm to keep them alive without clothing.

Pursuing that thought can reveal possible reasons humans began to wear clothing. For warmth and protection, especially when humans begin migrating to colder climates. Further down the line of human progress, the naked body became taboo and modesty came into the picture. It's very easy to come up with some reasons for wearing clothes. But now ask the question, "When did humans begin wearing clothes?"

Not an earth-shattering question. Perhaps not a question many people would think very important (or possible) to get an answer to. But there are those who burn with the desire to get an answer to this question, believe it or not.

Groups of researchers have thought of possible ways to determine the approximate date of apparel wearing. One idea says this could be determined by analyzing the date of origin of human body lice. The reasoning is that since humans have sparse body hair, the only way human body lice could survive would be in clothing. Seems an awfully long stretch to me. What about lice jumping off an animal and chowing down on a human? But supposed serious research has been done under this premise.

So how to determine when body lice appeared on humans? Simple. Take a modern day louse and do a genetic analysis of it. One group has determined that the human body louse appeared roughly 107,000 years ago, thus humans began to wear clothing about the same time. But nothing is that simple, let alone the ancestral DNA of a louse, for yet another team of researchers did the same genetic analysis on the modern louse and determined that it appeared roughly 540,000 years ago. The two groups are still haggling about it.

This is all according to some articles I've read on the Internet. Of course, reading something on the Internet doesn't make it so. It is hard to believe that scientists would take the trouble to invest effort, time and money on such a project. And just think of how many innocent body lice had to be sacrificed.

While I can't verify all of this, as ludicrous as it seems it most certainly is possible that this research has happened. Especially if you consider these other areas of research, a mere handful of crazy research projects I found while surfing the 'net:

• Arm pit odor research.
• Research to determine the relationship between beards and hierarchy.
• Research to prove that familiar children's nursery rhymes were written by aliens.

After reading those, the possibility of scientists hovering over a dead body louse and extracting its DNA to determine when humans began to wear clothing doesn't seem so far fetched. But if this research did take place, I don't mind saying I think it was a lousy idea.

I Never Did Believe In Santy Claus!

At Christmas Time, folks tend to get nostalgic, remembering how Christmas used to be when they were a kid and all. I can remember very well how Christmas was for me, when I was around five years old. The year would have been 1957:

The season started the day after Thanksgiving. Not with getting up early for the 'Black Friday' shopping debacle. There were some folks that did do shopping that day, but it was nothing officially designated with all thehooplah as it is now. We would go to the guy on the corner that had a bunch of trees huddled underneath a light bulb that hung from a drop cord. That was the 'official' start of the season for us. Trees freshly cut from someone that grew them locally. The house I grew up in had nine foot ceilings, so we'd get a big one. Dad would supervise as the older kids cut an inch or two off the bottom of the trunk to help the tree soak up the sugar water we would 'feed' it. Screw the tree down tight in the tree stand, drape Mom's home sewn tree skirt around it and decorate it. The older kids would get the top, the younger kids would get the bottom. We had the old time big lights, bubble lights, a huge box of ornaments, all of them ended up on the tree. We tried stringing popcorn a few years, but with seven kids in the house, no food was safe. Especially popcorn. Throwing the tinsel on the tree was the final ritual.

Then us kids waited for the next step, the arrival of the Montgomery Wards and Sears Christmas catalogs! When they arrived, Mom and Dad would tell us to look through them, put a circle around what we wanted and write our initial in the circle. That way SANTA would know what to bring us. I had my suspicions about the validity of this Santafellah. It just didn't sound right, even to my young ears. My suspicions would turn into full-blooded disbelief on Christmas Eve.

The next step in our Christmas ritual was shopping. With no shopping malls, trudging from store to store in the cold and snow was the practice of the day. Like most kids, I loved the snow. Looking back it sure seemed like it snowed more then. But the memory can be afooler . It's probably seems that way because six inches of snow is a lot deeper for a five-year old than a fifty five year old. My Mom , my little brother and I made our way from store to store, and when there were so many packages we couldn't carry any more, we went back to the car. It was at this tender age that my thoughts about the Great, White-Bearded Fat Elf turned from the fog of suspicion to the beginnings of disbelief. For if SANTA gave the presents to people, what were WE doing all this shopping for?

Then a wondrous thing happened. This Santa guy showed up in our town! And he was fat, had a white beard, and said HO HO HO! It was enough to make me wonder if Santa wasn't for real! In 1957, Santa had his own 'house' on the corner where the YMCA was. Not much of a house, some plywood nailed together with a roof. But it was painted red and green, and had a window the kids used to get a glimpse of Santa while they waited in line to get into his house. My little brother and I waited in line on a very cold afternoon. My Mom stood off to the side with the other mothers, all of them smiling as they talked. It began to snow, and my little brother's nose began to run. Right on down under his nose, over the lips and down the chin. But he fit right in with most of the rest of the kids that had the same problem.

My little brother went in before me, but he didn't last long. He was about 3 years old, and ran out of Santa's house squawling like a pig stuck under a gate. Santa scared hell out of him. But that didn't deter the rest of us. We'd seen other 'sissies' that did the same thing. I was next, and by now I was downright curious about the whole thing, so I marched into Santa's house, and plopped myself on his lap. He gave a loud HO HO HO and asked me if I had been a good boy. Of course I answered in the affirmative. Then he asked me what I wanted for Christmas. I told him I already had circled all I wanted in the catalogs, so he should already KNOW. Santa said he didn't know anything about any catalogs. He asked me again. So I told him a few things, but he didn't inspire much confidence (or belief) in him if he didn't know about the catalogs. Besides, he had the smell of beer on his breath and cigarette nicotine stains on his fingers. I never heard of Santa being a beer drinker, and everybody knew he smoked a pipe. I left his house very unimpressed.

Fast forward to Christmas Eve. Dad would get Grandma and bring her to our house for the holidays. She lived about 50 miles away, and he always went on Christmas Eve day, come hell or high water or deep snow and cold. Grandma was a short woman. Her family was Polish mostly, with a little bit of German thrown in for good measure. Dad would get back, drive up to the house with Grandma in the front and three cases of beer in the back. Dad liked his beer, and he came by it honestly because Grandma liked her beer too. All of us would line up in the living room to welcome Grandma. She would pinch each kid's cheek, and give them a beery kiss. When she pinched the older (and taller) kid's cheeks she'd hold on and pull them down to her level for the kiss.

Our family tradition was to open our gifts on Christmas Eve. Mom and Dad would take all the kids (except my oldest brother) to look at the Christmas lights. Now that was a pretty big deal, even for me. We'd come back home in about an hour, and there would be all kinds of presents under the tree that weren't there when we left! A miracle! Mom and Dad would make a big deal out of telling us that Santa must have visited while we were gone. But I noticed my oldest brother sitting in the kitchen. He was all red in the face and sweaty. While everyone else got more and more excited, I walked into the kitchen and asked him point-blank, "WasSanty really here and bring all them presents, or did you haul them down from the attic?" He told me to shut up. But it didn't matter. I knew that's what happened. I knew all the presents had been in the attic. I had gone present hunting (my brother called it snooping) and found them . But I didn't make a big deal out of it. My Mom and Dad seemed to be getting a lot of enjoyment from the whole thing. So I played along with the Santa bit, and joined everybody else in unwrapping presents.

We never really had a sit-down supper Christmas Eve. Mom would make a big pot of meatballs, or home made pizza, or something similar and we'd 'graze' on the stuff as we took stock of our presents. We'd stay up until the wee hours playing and eating, with my Mom watching and smiling and my Dad drinking beer and playing with our toys. Grandma would try to stay up late with us, but after so many beers the dear old soul would be a combination of tipsy and tired, start talking about Grandpa (who had been dead for years, Grandpa was 30 years older than Grandma) and begin to cry. Some of the kids would help Grandma into her room, and get rewarded with another beery (and teary) kiss. Mom and my sister would get her ready for bed and tuck her in. Eventually everybody would wind down, and we'd head for bed. It was usually a short night.

We used to have a real goose for Christmas Dinner, and we'd get up with Mom and help her get things ready. My Dad would give Mom a Christmas Goose too, but I didn't understand what that was all about until I was older. We'd eat Christmas Goose with all the trimmings, then settle in and play with our stuff some more. Mom, Dad and Grandma would sit at the kitchen table, play cards and drink beer. Except for Mom. She was a teetotaller, so she'd drink tea.

So that's how Christmas was when I was a kid. They are all good memories, even Grandma's beery kisses. She's been gone since 1977, and what I wouldn't give for her to be here and give me one of those kisses this year. Mom and Dad are gone, my oldest brother too. The rest of us have gone our separate ways, and for various reasons (none of them good) we don't see each other much. But life goes on. I've got my share of good memories. Some people do not even have that. So there actually much that I am thankful for, despite the troubles in the world and in our country. Even the memory of the fabricated jolly old elf that so many people tried to convince me existed (that I don't think I EVER believed in) is a good one. A fabrication it most definitely was, but at least in those times it seemed like it was an innocent one. At least it appears that it did no harm to me.

But as I've already said, the memory can be a fooler. Although I do look back, I have no desire to go back to those times. I've never bought into the 'Good Ol' Days' nostalgia business. It is far too easy to remember bit s and pieces of what you want to remember and color those memories differently than they actually were. The only things I really miss about those times are the people that were in them that are no longer here. The rest I can do without. And that includes SANTY CLAUS, HO HO HO!

Christmas Peeves!

Call me an old Scrooge, but here are some of my PET PEEVES about the Christmas Season:


1) The Little Brass Bell - The Salvation Army is a very worthy organization. The number of folks they help during the holidays and all year long for that matter, prove that. But I must say, I get so damned tired of hearing THAT LITTLE BRASS BELL being ding-a-linged, I could pull out me hair! It isn't the idea that there's a real ARMY of folks standing on street corners and in malls collecting money. Like I said, they're a very worthy charity and I give something most every time I pass one of the collection pots. But the incessant ringing of the bell! Sure it draws attention, but the sound of the thing, especially indoors, permeates the air and goes through my head like a hot knife through butter. No doubt some would say the reason it goes through my head is that there's nothing in the way to stop it. Be that as it may, the sound irritates me, sets my teeth on edge. It is so annoying I have actually told the person ringing the bell that I'll only donate if they QUIT RINGING THE DAMNED THING until I'm out the door or out of earshot! No bell ringer has respected my request so far, but I still put the money in the pot. Our church volunteers to do this bell-ringing every year. My wife does it, many folks do. I don't. I have made my feelings known, and they don't bother asking anymore. So call me a Scrooge, call me a stick-in-the-mud, or any other name you want. I still can't stand the sound of that brass bell!

2) Christmas Carols - Every year, the same old songs. Over and over again. This in itself would be bad enough, but there's always some joker singing a carol that thinks they have to embellish the bejeezus out of it. A simple melody is transformed into a vehicle for their astounding vocal gymnastics. Crap! Just sing the damned song, will ya? To be fair, it isn't the songs. It's the endless repetition of them. No matter where you go, you hear them. The bank, the grocery store, the dentist, the doctor. These 'joyous noises' creep into my head like an annual fungal infection of the auditory system whose only cure is the passing of the season. I can't even sit out in my car while the wife shops without hearing the damned things. And after being bombarded with them day in and day out, people STILL buy recordings of them? Enough already!

3) Holiday Shoppers - It begins on the infamous 'Black Friday'. No, not the crash of the stock market in '29. The day after Thanksgiving. Stores open early, one opened up at 4:00AM near us. People (or rather WILD ANIMALS THAT SEEM LIKE PEOPLE) line up long before the doors open. The prey? Bargains! It's like watching a feeding frenzy of pirhanas. I avoid stores on Black Friday like the plague when I can, but this year a refill for medication (which I forgot to get earlier) necessitated me going. I waited until 5:00 PM, and by then the teeming throng had dwindled. The shopping center looked like the aftermath of a pinata-busting party. Tables that only hour before were heaped with bargains now only held the pawed-over remains. And again to be fair, it isn't the idea of getting a gift for someone that annoys me so. It is the lengths people will go to 'prove' they care about someone, that they will subject themselves to these horrors and become part of the horror themselves. But there is one part of Holiday Shopping I relish. I try to make it to the local shopping mall on Christmas Eve. About 2 hours before closing time. I willingly fight to get a parking spot, wedge my way in the door, but not to shop. To observe. I jump into the first empty seat on a shopping mall bench, and just watch. The noise, the bustle, the tension, on occasion the downright brutality of the johnny-come-lately shoppers on Xmas Eve is a study in human behavior. Every psychologist should have to do it. It's a real eye-opener. Sometimes it gets ugly, and makes Black /friday look like a tea party. I try to stay until all the stores are closed, and mall security is hustling what;s left of the human wreckage out the door. If I'm fortunate enough to be the last one out the door (it's happened on occasion), I give thanks for the incredible peace and quiet after all the broohaha.

4) The Day After Christmas - If the start of the holiday selling season is called Black Friday, what should we call the end of the season? you know, the day when everyone wants to exchange or get a refund for all the crap that they got that is either the wrong size or not what they wanted. The day when the lines at the service desks and exchange counters are so long and wide they look like some sort of horrible anaconda from hell. I can't think of a word or term that is appropriate, but it is a sight to behold. If you ever have the chance to be an outside observer of this phenomenon (if you are a part of the anaconda, you'll get no sympathy from me) the same people that made up the throngs on Black Friday make up the length and breadth of the anaconda. Is there something nefarious going on here? Are these humans merely unthinking cogs in a vast corporate conspiracy to deprive them of their money, dignity and time (mostly their money)?

These complaints but scratch the surface. But if I go any further, I'll have to rant about those who complain about The Holidays. I'm not going there. I refuse to call myself such names. I also will not wish everyone the usual seasonal greetings. But I will wish that you all have a Restful Christmas, and a Peaceful New Year. Those are the things I want for myself, and for everyone.