The Two Days of Christmas
Oh the weather outside is frightful, but the fire is so delightful. But will we be together?
What Boss Is This?
Which is the reason for the season? Business or Christmas? Or, perhaps, the business of Christmas? It can get complicated. And it depends on many factors.
Of course, if your boss is Scrooge, you can pretty well guess how it’s all going to go down, right? Suddenly it’s all too simple.
My last two bosses have a lot in common. No need to rehash the whole thing. In short, they both love to eat money, they both are in retail, and they both have fake Photoshopped pictures of their business on their websites. They both consider themselves to be virtuous paragons of Christianity, too.
And they both hate to shut down for any holiday.
The day after Thanksgiving? No brainer. We’re open, of course. They’ll reluctantly shut down for the big day, but that’s it. Go on. Take the time with your family. Enjoy the day. Just don’t try to travel anywhere. Feel free to visit all of the relatives you want as long as they live in the same town.
Wow. How thoughtful.
Of course, we all know that day is called Black Friday. Even for a tiny little operation, that’s a day devoted to the unbridled lust for money.
It’s about the same for Christmas, too. Thanks to my bosses I have some precious memories of Christmas:
- Two bags of cat food, a container of kitty litter and a bottle of Pine Sol. (The Christmas Bonus song.)
- Another trip to WalMart with a Christmas “bonus.”
- Last, but certainly not least, the time my previous boss wanted me to attend his party on Christmas Eve. I declined, saying I had family coming into town. (The truth.) He told me I wouldn’t get my yearly bonus if I didn’t attend. Classy tidings of comfort and joy!
As an atheist, Christmas is a very important time of the year to me. It represents the holy grail of the most precious gift of all. Time away from my job!
Christmas and the Calendar
What’s the best possible scenario for Christmas scheduling? I think it’s when Christmas Eve falls on a Thursday and Christmas Day falls on a Friday. If you have a half-way decent boss, you just got yourself a four-day weekend! Even if your boss is a dick you still get a three-day weekend.
What’s the worst possible scenario? Have you looked ahead to December in 2011 yet? Take a look. Read ’em and weep.
Yep. This year we are facing Christmasaggedon. That’s Christmas Eve on a Saturday and Christmas Day on a Sunday. That’s absolutely the worst possible Christmas scheduling that mankind has yet devised.
If you have a greed-based boss, he’ll have an evil twinkle in his eye, rub his hands together, and exclaim, “God bless profits, every one! No extra days off for Christmas this year!”
Naturally us grunts assumed he’d at least make it a three-day weekend, even though days off are unpaid. (It’s well worth it.) No such luck.
Luckily, however, I anticipated all of this, and I thought to look ahead before my coworker thought of it. Days off request, baby. I took Friday and Monday off. He approved the request then talked about it in the office. Oops. Now the coworker knows. Too bad, so sad!
Sweet four-day Christmas weekend bliss.
Thank you, Father Christmas, that I had the foresight to plan ahead! At least someone is looking out for me. (Yeah, me, myself and I. We discussed this during our last meeting.)
Merry Christmas to me!
Anticipation
My explorations of space and time continue.
I remember when I was younger. Time moved slower. If there was some future date I was looking forward to, like Christmas, it took an agonizingly long time to arrive. It took forever.
As an adult, I’m learning it works just a wee bit differently.
I seldom look forward to anything. I did recently, though, when it came to our camping trip. And, of course, any day where I don’t have to work. A work week with only four days is so different than a regular work week it almost blows my mind. Those are about the only things I look forward to as an adult. Days away from the pain. A rare added bonus is days that will actually be fun. Like camping. Or a weekend stay at the Bed & Breakfast where we got married. Those are days I can look forward to.
You may find that having is not so pleasing a thing after all as wanting. It is not logical but it is often true.
–Spock
So there are times I may actually look forward to something. And that’s where time comes in. Blink. I’m back at work and the thing I was looking forward to is now just a memory.
WFT? How in the hell did that happen? It was a month away and now all of the sudden it’s already over?
When it was younger, because it took so long, there was an actually sense of anticipation. I realized recently that anticipation is history because anything I look forward to arrives in the blink of any eye. It’s over and a distant memory long before there was any chance of actual anticipation.
Time sure ain’t what it used to be.
Thoughts about suffocated 10-year-old children
It’s a plot that even Quentin Tarantino could never think of: Eat a popsicle and get suffocated in a box.
Story: Reuters – Girl found suffocated was locked in box as punishment
That same witness also told police, “She saw Cynthia force Ame to eat dog feces” as punishment for not cleaning up all the dog feces near their clothesline.
Police also reported that one of Ame’s aunts, Samantha Allen, “eventually confessed to putting hot sauce in Ame’s mouth, hitting her with [a paddle called the] Butt Buster, and putting her in the box as a disciplinary measure.”
Source: ABC15.com
Want proof that we’re all doomed? Here it sits.
I just came across this story and instantly almost popped a blood vessel. What in the name of holy fuckshit is going on with the world???
I’ve thought it over for a couple of minutes and I think I have an answer.
NO ONE IS EVER HELD TO FULL ACCOUNT
What do I mean by “full account?” It’s simple. It’s the idea that the punishment can never equal what the victim went through. The victim can never made whole.
Make someone eat dog shit and kill them in a box? The “best” we can ever hope for is a nice, clean death. No dog shit. No suffocation. The reality, though, is that it’s probable even that won’t happen. The vast majority of evil in the world goes completely unpunished. In the rare case someone has to actually pay for what they have done, it is never enough.
By that definition, there can never truly be justice. Only a mere shadow of an attempt.
It works a little something like this: Be a flaming moron. Be a thoughtless jackass. Act totally on impulse your entire life initiating a progression that escalates over time. Why does it escalate? Because no one ever holds you to account.
Your whole life you’ve never been taken to task. In the remote possibility that someone even tried, you managed to weasel out. Maybe you got away with some lies. Maybe you pathetically begged and pleased and were shown forgiveness. Maybe you told some sob story about how other people were depending on you.
Whatever. Once you were let off the hook you learned a valuable lesson about how the world worked. You learned you could get away with it. It may be the only lesson you ever really learned in life, but you learned it well.
Maybe you were shown mercy with all the best intentions in the world. The road to Hell is paved with those good intentions.
For some people real learning never takes place until a sufficient level of pain is reached. And that level of pain is never reached any more. At least not until it’s too late for the innocent.
Now the game begins. The crying. The pleading. The sincere blubberings of “I didn’t mean it” and “I wanted to do something to stop it” and such. And the legal maneuvering. All the wheels of “justice” are about to kick into high gear.
Make a little girl eat dog shit? You need to fucking die. But we don’t have that punishment, do we?
Attention humans: I am not one of you! No fucking way.
The Dos Amoebas
Another image of such high-quality that it is impossible to believe I made it myself.
When I wrote the above joke last night, I decided it was time to do an amoeba post. I asked myself, “I wonder if I’ve ever writtene about amoebas before?” So I searched my blog. Yep. Damn, I like the way I used to think. It was in a post entitled Impulsively acting on my values. So this may be a bit of a rehash.
What, if anything, separates humans from our friend the humble amoeba?
I like to think it’s the fact that reason, intelligence and self-awareness gives us the opportunity to do something other than that which is biologically instinctual.
Do I push the old lady down in my quest to buy the last Furby?
Do I buy a fake diploma and put it on my resume to get a job?
Do I lie and cheat on my taxes?
Do I dump used motor oil into the soil out back behind my garage?
Do I park in the fire lane because I want a shorter walk to the ATM?
While stopped at a red light do I pull out my ashtray and dump it on the ground?
I submit that people who answer “yes” to questions like the above have the mental equivelance of the amoeba. On this, I reserve the right to be judge, jury and executioner. The verdict? Guilty. The sentence: Denial of mitosis!
Just because you can do a thing doesn’t mean you should.
Some people get that. Sadly, most of us don’t.
How I time travel
A few times a week I host an informal meeting. It’s a small, semi-private affair attended by me, myself and I. Just the three of us.
No, don’t call the nice men in nice white coats just yet. It’s not like that. At least I don’t think it is.
The attendees are not variations of the current me or echoes of my id. It’s not quite that simple.
In addition to myself, the meeting is most graciously attended by the me of before and the me of next.
Lyrical poetry: Pondscum
Today I offer for your consideration a piece I wrote circa 2002. I really poured my heart and soul into this one so please try to offer your criticisms in a kind, thoughtful manner.
Obviously this piece was intended and destined to be a hardrock/pop song. It would be recorded in the style of Disturbed or perhaps Dope. At least that’s how I always envisioned it.
Of course this piece has nothing to do with me. That’s my special gift as a songwriter. Somehow I have the ability to empathetically inhabit the characters and situations that I create.
I sincerely hope you will enjoy this lyrical diversion.
I’m sure it’ll be a big, big hit.
PONDSCUM
by Tom B. Taker
you made the money
i screwed around
you paid the bills
i slowed you down
you did the work
i wasted time
you bossed me
i lost my mind
[chorus]
i’m pondscum!
i’m pondscum!
i’m pondscum!
i am what you made me
you were responsible
i was a flake
you made decisions
i made mistakes
you were right
i was wrong
you held the cards
i didn’t belong
[chorus]
i’m pondscum!
i’m pondscum!
i’m pondscum!
look where you led me
[angry metal guitar bridge]
[repeat chorus]
[shouting]
see ya around, “mom”
Termination Tuesdays: The FINAL Four
I find myself feeling a bit dirty after the decided lack of negativity in the previous post. (What was I thinking?) So, without further ado, I’d like to introduce the Next Big Thing on the blog…
Termination Tuesdays – Ways To Die Poll
This may or may not be a semi-regular feature. The premise is simple. It’s a poll comparing two ways to die to find out which one is liked the least. Fun, eh? I guess that will be determined by the execution of this idea.
Heh! I slay me! 🙂
Perhaps we’ll do it bracketology style. If I can think of 64 worthy entrants, the weekly poll will eliminate one contender. Eventually we’ll be left with only the final four and then we can have some sudden death playoffs.
Yeah, that’ll be fun! Come on and play along. After all, it won’t kill you now, will it?
Shouts from the Abyss 
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