Let’s back up a bit. Due to bereavement for our beloved Bazooka (see last week’s article) and a much-needed vacation (see previous week’s lack thereof), this topic was put on hold, delayed, and damned near forgotten.
So, we’ll travel back in time. Go back and forth, hither and yon through the space time continuum. For those of you who experience motion sickness, please don’t throw up in the car. The car? Yes of course the car. What did you think we were going to do… walk? Marty McFly: Wait a minute, Doc. Ah… Are you telling me you built a time machine (pant pant) … out of a pair of Air Jordans?
Dr. Emmett Brown: The way I see it, if you’re gonna build a time machine into shoes, why not do it with some style?
The thought of Christopher Lloyd cheering on Micheal J. Fox running 88 miles per hour, wearing a flux-capacitor backpack, always makes me smile. This concludes the unnecessarily irrelevant Back to the Future references… for today. Anywho…
Roughly a month ago, 2nd to last week of July, early afternoon, I made an impromptu trip to the hardware store. My mission — to procure a new vacuum cleaner, at the behest of my beloved Lil’ Red (that’s the spouse) because the old one sucked. Or rather it didn’t suck. Actually… it kinda sucked but the spinny brush thingie wouldn’t spin right because it sucked. Sucking without spinning sucks… anyway… new vacuum.
Entering into the store proper there was that familiar sensation of vertigo I always experience when time traveling. Because it felt like we’d just flux-capacitated 3 months into the future to somewhere in late October, as mine vision was accosted by premature and definably out of place seasonal decor.
My eyes drifted up the writhing form of an 8-foot-tall, lighted, animatronic Witch — retail $279.00. Still upward they climbed, my eyes, along the laughing spasmatic wiggling of a lighted and animatronic Mummy, boasting a retail price tag of $348.00. Finally, they fixated, my eyes again, on the form towering above them all, a 12-foot-tall (more like 14 with its hat) lighted, animatronic scythe-wielding scarecrow, retailing at a whopping $398.00. All greeting you in an ominous, looming way upon entering.
Apologies to anyone in the store that day close enough to hear me utter those 3 little words- “What the f***!” But seriously WTF? Independence Day is barely in the rearview and we’re already gearing up for Halloween? What about Labor Day? Where are all the little pregnant lady piñatas full of Sugar Babies candies… what… oh… it’s not that kind of “labor” day? Well… other than getting a day off nobody cares about it either way. Anyway… again.
Okay let’s back out of this sideways. Who has $400 to just blow on a piece of holiday lawn décor that’s only pertinent for one day out of the year? Why you’d want it in your yard for more than a week is beyond me. Just adding to the chance of property damage or death if that thing blows over. But still, where will you store it the other 51 weeks?
Bigger is better? For what exactly? It’s not like regular door-to-door trick-or-treating is a thing anymore, so what’s the purpose? Never mind… I don’t care to hear how much you love whatever you’re defining as celebrating Halloween. The important thing here is the “why” in the timing.
Halloween decorations sold at the end of July and on display before the end of August, two months before the actual holiday. Why? Well, that’s easy — so they can ease the guilty burden of skipping right over Thanksgiving and slip right into your wallet for the big enchilada: X-mas.
Seriously, the holidays have become nothing more than a money racket and those in the land of the free and home of the Alanta Braves have fallen for it, stocking hook, line of x-mas lights, and sinker. At this rate they’ll soon be peddling X-mas crap before you can carve you jack-o-lanterns… or before the ceramic one you ordered on Amazon arrives.
When they say to spread the holiday spirit, they mean to share it, not drag it out indefinitely. But we will. And when the holiday season encompasses every season, will it really be a holiday anymore?
I welcome almost all questions, comments via FOCUS, or email me at [email protected]. Hope to hear from ya until then try and stay focused! See ya.
