Stuff.

RUDOLPH THE RED NOSED REINDEER
Tonight Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer is on CBS, 7:00 Central Time.

I'm not normally the sentimental type, but Rudolph and A Charlie Brown Christmas are the two occasions each year I allow myself to well up a little (not full-blown cry, mind you) at something as insipid as a television show.

It's supposed to be snowing in the Twin Cities tonight, which is perfect. What could be better than curling up with my honey with a mug of hot chocolate with Rudolph on the tube and snow falling outside?

NOT A DESPERATE HOUSEWIFE
Yesterday I blogged about the various folks I link to on my blog. Word on the street is that my pal Stacy is enjoying her blogging hiatus so much she may not be back. That would break my heart, but I understand completely.

DYSFUNCTIONAL FAMILY CIRCUS

Yesterday I wrote about how much I utterly detest The Family Circus cartoon. Here's a link (http://medmeta.dyndns.org/dfc/) to the archives of the Dysfunctional Family Circus, a now-legendary parody of the comic strip that was litigated out of existence. Thankfully there remain some folks out there courageous enough to keep it on line. Some of the punchlines are obscene, many are nonsensical, but the important thing is that there are apparently many people out there who feel as I do: that it's over for The Family Circus.

BACK WOES
Three years ago this December I had surgery on my upper back. The culprit: a herniated disk.

Now, my wife is suffering severe back pain. She had an MRI a couple days ago, and we're hoping to get word by the end of the week as to the recommended treatment. She's been through physical treatment twice and has seen a chiropractor, all to no avail. I'm torn; on one hand I hate to see my beautiful wife go under the knife, but on the other hand I know from firsthand experience the abject joy of having surgery take away the pin immediately.

Anyway, if you're the praying type, give my wife a mention. She's dreadfully uncomfortable and I hate to see her feel like this.

COLUMN

The following is this week's submission to the Stillwater Gazette. I hesitate to post it, frankly. In all honesty, I don't like how the column is going. It feels way too "safe." Anyone who truly knows me realizes that I'm a royal smart-ass. My humor is often shocking; nothing is off-limits, much to many people's chagrin. So how do I use the privilege of a weekly column in the Gazette? Writing innocuous, mildly-amusing-at-best drivel, no different than anything else published in any other small-town newspaper across the country.

It doesn't help that yesterday I received in the mail my copy of the November 22 Gazette (yes, it took the Post Office a full week to send a paper 15 miles) featuring my column about purchasing holiday cards for the company I work for. To my horror, I found that it had been edited so much that the whole point of the column was utterly lost. My wife can testify that when I read it, I nearly wept.

I've long felt that I need to just go "balls out" on something humorous and see if it works. I've long pondered creating a conservative version of The Onion, which is in my opinion the funniest thing on the Internet. As usual, however, I'm all talk.

Anyway, here's the turd of a column.

CHRISTMAS SHOPPING

This year after Thanksgiving dinner I sat in the wings and dutifully listened to relatives discuss their day-after-Thanksgiving shopping strategies. The intricacy of their plans made me think that the War on Terror could have been avoided by simply telling these folks that Osama bin Laden is out there somewhere, and he’s got eleven-dollar DVD players for the first five apprehenders. They’d have had him within 24 hours.

Day-after-Thanksgiving shopping is a science. Those who participate make dry runs, create distractions to confuse other shoppers, and basically do everything within their power, ethical or otherwise, to ensure that they’re one of the first 50 shoppers getting the best early morning deals; perhaps a 46” plasma screen television for eight dollars or a $50 laptop. Did you see the news footage of people trampling elderly folks to enter stores at dawn? That was my family, exhibiting less decorum than hurricane victims fighting over bottled water.

One family member planned to be at an electronics super-store at 5:30 a.m. to ensure he received a DVD player for eleven dollars. I asked him if he needed another DVD player. He impatiently replied “Need? It’s eleven dollars!”

My mistake.

My wife and I wouldn’t even bother Christmas shopping except that one family member had to stay true to his Catholic roots and have children. Thankfully the other siblings are less than devout or we’d be even deeper in debt. My hope is that before the rest of them are bitten by the childbearing bug, a version of the Scriptures will surface where the “Be fruitful and multiply” command has the caveat “but you can stop around four billion or so.”

Anyway, now the whole family is in competition to get the kids the coolest gifts. This is no easy feat given that their grandmother lives next door to them and is a mole. You’d think having a mole would be beneficial; she can keep tabs on the latest toys and inform the rest of the family what’s hot and what’s not. In an ideal world, anyway.

The problem is she always buys them the best toys before the rest of us have a chance. I’m sure there’s a psychological term for this. Regardless of the diagnosis, what it means is that grandma will present the kids with an X Box this Christmas while the rest of us bear gifts that would have been voted off the Island of Misfit Toys. Pacifist Army men; conjoined My-Size Barbie twins that even Gary Glitter would refuse; hardly the stuff of which happy holidays are made. Gifts that don’t so much cry “Merry Christmas” as mutter “We tried.”

I just hope and pray that no animated chimpanzee heads show up under the tree. This is the latest item available from the Sharper Image, which is a store designed for people who have done everything shy of literally create a bonfire with their money. I’ve got to hand it to them, their marketing for the chimpanzee head is sheer genius. Never do they claim the product is useful or even remotely desirable. It is what it is, a $150 mechanized chimpanzee head, no more and no less. I weep for the day when extra-terrestrial archeologists sift through the remnants of our supposed “civilization” and discover warehouses full of these monstrosities. Hopefully they’ll find the art museums first and at least know we tried to have a little culture. Please don’t let them stumble upon a Robert Mapplethorpe exhibit.

I arose at 5:00 a.m. the day after Thanksgiving, and after a quick, bleary-eyed visit to the bathroom, I went back to bed and slept ‘til 10:00, my bladder empty, my wallet full, and my conscience clear from not having wrestled a wheelchair-bound World War II veteran for the last Tickle Me Elmo. Sure, I still have to go shopping and contend with the crowds, the rudeness, and the rampant commercialism, but not ‘til later. Much later. And there’s always the Internet.

The price of a DVD player at 5:30 a.m. the day after Thanksgiving? Eleven dollars. The price of that same DVD player the next day? Twenty-five dollars. The price of not having to witness firsthand the depths to which people will sink for the pursuit of material goods? Apparently fourteen dollars. And worth every cent.