Get Your Sick Ass Back to Idaho

Spotted in the Safeway men's room in Diamond Heights:

Mr. Senator, I don't know what you've heard about the good families of San Francisco, but we don't go for your particular brand of perversion here. This isn't some public gay sex haven like Couer D'Alene or Pocatello. Our Safeways are not your personal bordellos.

***

Last weekend (Sept. 14), it was the Xmas display at Macy's. Yesterday (Sept. 23) during NFL action, it was the first ad for an Xmas movie, Fred Claus. It's Vince Vaughn as Santa's older brother. Wacka dacka doo!

Fred Claus arrives November 9th, marking the second consecutive year that the Xmas movie season starts mid-fall. And somebody is very pleased about this.

Yes, I once knew a delusional Xmas-All-Year type. It was 1996, and she was a middle-aged neighbor of my then-girlfriend's parents. All year, her house was littered with ceramic snowmen and mini-Santas, and her CD changer was loaded with nothing but children's carols and Bing Crosby. Monstrously disappointed with her life, this poor woman had retreated entirely to her childhood memories and locked the door on the rest of reality. She had willfully transformed her life into a ever-looping rerun of those magical four weeks after Thanksgiving.

I imagine that a huge chunk of this Christian Nation must mindfully suppress urges to become this woman, the way that Republican senators suppress urges to become Ian McKellen. Hollywood could shit out another Xmas movie in May, and millions of grownups would go and bring the kids. (Come to think of it, Gremlins was a summer Xmas movie, sort of.)

I would thus like to repeat my suggestion that we Americans call bullshit on referring to any part of the year as "the Holiday Season." First of all, the other holidays are big nothings, and as a former Jewish child, I can safely report that all the non-Christians are just faking it out of jealousy. At this point, the only defense for calling it "the Holiday Season" is so that Bill O'Reilly can't claim credit for victory over the Al Qaeda-aligned secular progressives.

So let's not call the latter part of the year anything. Instead, let's refer to Jan. 15-March 18 as "the Pre-Xmas Season." Then Xmas can occupy the other 10 months, just like Hollywood, retailers, consumer goods producers, and credit card companies want.