“It’s beginning to look a lot like Christ-mas…” NO, NO, NO, stop the written carol singing…no it is not beginning! OK fine, so maybe it is beginning to at least look somewhat like it…but it shouldn’t be, not yet anyway! For the love of Jehovah people, we have just barely finished the annual giving of thanks rituals! Can we at least complete the being thankful part of the year, or at least finish eating the traditional thankful meal, before igniting the most all-consuming of Hell-i-day wildfires?
According to commercialism and greed fueled retailers, apparently not. Black Friday sales began a day earlier this year, which really makes no sense, common or otherwise, what-so-ever. How can sales that are supposed to occur and be effective for one day, that being “Black Fri-DAY” to be precise, encompass any hours of the previous day? Is it still a Black Friday sale if it starts “Thanksgiving Thursday” afternoon? Wouldn’t that be a Grey Thursday Afternoon Sale? Well at least the almighty gods of retail allowed their patron slaves to bargain bin pricing have their turkey day meal before the grey-area sales commenced.
Yes, how very graciously courteous of them to open their doors to the general shopping public a few hours past noon. This 
meant employees of said retail outlets had to forego food, fellowship and time with their own families, to be there before the doors opened. So you could fight for your life against other shoppers to acquire a state of the art, Cuisinart 12-cup espresso coffee maker & single-serve brewer for good old Uncle Joe for X-mas. The fact that Joe rarely drinks coffee and will probably never use it is irrelevant because you got it at half-price and will save an additional 25% with mail-in-rebate. Of course he, and the rest of the family, would have probably been a lot happier…more thankful perhaps, had you stuck around for dessert instead of racing off to stand in line at Kohl’s. So now that Black Friday has proven it can take you away from your family on turkey day, what’s next-White Wednesday??? With the mention of anything white this is beginning to feel like some sort of racial thing—weirdo how that works…moving on.
So…it’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas…sigh…there’s no stopping it now. People are so desperate to shop for stuff they don’t need, guess we best just get on with it. Let’s trim the tree (or assemble the pre-lit and decorated one you got on clearance (75% off with mail-in rebate and you got points and cash back). It’s time to deck the halls, hang the wreath, light the yule log, bake the cakes of fruit, wrap the presents, crank up the carols, plan the meal (that you’ll surely skip out on if there’s an post X-mas day sale) and of course, with company coming, polish the turd.
Ah yes, X-mas is full of so many traditi…what’s that? You’ve never heard of the age-old tradition of polishing of the turd? “Don’t you know about the turd, well everybody knows that the turd is the word. A-well a turd, turd, turd, turd is a word!” Incidentally this has nothing to do with South Parks’ Mr. Hankey the X-mas poo. How in hell a singing, dancing, piece of s*** has become an acceptable X-mas icon is beyond this writer’s comprehension. Oh he has a little Santa hat so that makes it OK.
To set your mind at ease, we’re not talking about an actual turd, X-mas or otherwise. Furthermore, the act of polishing the turd is not solely reserved for the holidays as it can occur anytime throughout the year. However, as the holiday season rolls around, the turd oft becomes more noticeable and puts off a visual stench. If you’re lucky perhaps, your home is turd free or at least it’s just a little bit of poo, which is easy to cover up. However if you have a full blown turd in your home, you’ve either got to polish it or replace it.
So what is this fecal offense of which we speak? If not an actual butt loaf what are we trying to polish? A household “turd” is a part of the home’s structure, or a furnishing or fixture within, that cannot easily be replaced and no amount of cleaning, polishing or repair can make it not look like s***! Yet we deny, we try, and sometimes even lie, all the while faced with the realization that much like in the literal sense- one cannot polish a turd. Within the walls of the House o’ Saw there is such a turd.
The flooring tiles in the kitchen/dining room have exceeded their life-expectancy by a good 5+ years. The increasing dookie levels and increased traffic have resulted in a dull, lack-luster dirty look that no amount of mopping can relieve or resurrect. Despite repainting and redecorating the walls around it and replacing the furnishings within, the floor continues to bring the whole room down to its excremental level. At this point there is only one solution…time to metaphorically and literally shovel some sh-dookie!
There are times in household maintenance, home improvement and life, when we’ve done all we can and find ourselves polishing a turd. Despite our best efforts to salvage and improve, we find we can never restore things to even a shadow of their former glory. We can ignore the smell but cannot deny that the stench is still there and will only get worse with time. It is up to us to put our foot down, (preferably watching where we do, least we track s*** across the turd) and decide when something is beyond repair, out of our control, beyond our abilities to maintain and needs to be replaced or at least removed from our lives. Only we can decide when to stop polishing turds.
I welcome almost all questions and comments via through the Focus, or E-mail me at [email protected]. Hope to hear from ya, until then try and stay focused. See ya.
I welcome almost all questions and comments via FOCUS, or email me at [email protected]
Hope to hear from ya, until then try and stay focused. See ya!
