Shortly after Independence Day had come and gone, my son, Erik and I left the relative cool of our home and dared to endure the dreadful heat of midsummer in the South to go on a series of purchasing-related errands.
This was a chore. Erik and I dislike shopping for just about anything except odd spices, variants of dahl, and music.
We especially detest having to buy small and stupid items, like plastic organizers. On the other hand, these things are often necessary. The recent rediscovery of bagged buttons had inspired me to sort the same. Now, I needed a plastic organizer.
So we waited until other errands of similar ilk presented themselves. They did so on a day that measured 100 degrees in the shade.
After sweating, cooling, shopping, and sweating, we ended our excursion at a local hobby center. Upon entering, we were greeted by large orange objects, which turned out to be stacked plastic pumpkins.
I noted that it was not yet mid-July.
“Halloween is just around the corner!” Erik said cheerfully.
I made a face, muttered to myself and we pressed on. We discovered the wall filled with said plastic organizers, and bought two.
On the way out, we were greeted by large stacks of silvery balls. I stopped short.
“Oh, look!” Erik said. “It’s the Captain Picard Christmas ornaments!
The packages were labeled: “Make it so! Christmas ornaments.”
“What the…?” I said. “I am reading this right, right?”
“It’s July!” Erik announced. “But it’s Christmas! Make it so!”
“Stop talking in exclamation points. You sound like a listserve I subscribe to. Every email has at least three exclamation points for every five sentences.”
“A hostile listserve has been spotted. Unsubscribe, captain?” Erik asked.
“Make it so!” I replied firmly.
We pressed on toward the checkout counter.
As the cashier rang up our purchase, Erik and I watched a second cashier unpacking Christmas ornaments. She held one up for our cashier to admire. It was a metal strawberry, coated in the sort of paint that was meant to evoke chocolate.
“That’s another one I’m going to try and snag,” our cashier said.
“Uh huh,” the other woman agreed. “Makes me hungry.”
I tried not to look at Erik. He appeared to be making the same effort. We left the store.
“Wow,” Erik said. “Makes even us Jews want to put Christ back into Christmas.”
I’m not sure why, but Erik’s “a hostile listserve has been spotted” bit sounds more Original Series than Next Generation. In any case–hilarious!
Glad to see that you have joined the crowd of persons revolted at the early arrival (before December, or BD for short) of Chinese Christmas crap in our local stores. And think of the things that would change in our little world could we but “make it so.”
Beam me up Scotty, there’s no sign of intelligent life down here . . .