You’re a Mean One, Mister Murk

So Christmas is over, right? Did we decide to start early and finish late? I mean, if we’re going to start the Christmas season back when I’m still hiding in my house with the lights out while goblins and pirates yell “Trick or treat!” at my front door, then it can't last until the end of the year.

Not according to Starbucks, an unavoidable establishment with its own radio station, one still playing a selection of Christmas tunes. And not according to my neighbors, who have left their inflated, mechanized yard decorations up. When I say inflated, I mean what marketers generally call inflatable. However, “inflatable” implies that at some point the reindeer carousel inside the puffy snow globe will be deflated, and I have come to the pained realization that it never will. It must be Christmas magic. It does not—will not—ever diminish.

Not the same one, but you get the idea. This example
and an accompanying article can be found here.

Still, at least this repeated encounter with outdoor decoration points out another area for self-improvement. The signs are all there, the main one being that today I caught myself, as I fidgeted and prepared to pull my car away from the curb, suddenly saying aloud to the absent owners of the mechanized child's fantasy, “You better shut that fucker off and take it inside before I sharpen a broom handle and pop it for you.”

At least I didn’t actually say it to the owners. But in a way that makes it even sadder, because I’m the only one who has to suffer my invective. And I’m the only one who feels like the idiot glaring at the plastic penguin riding the plastic reindeer. According to Johnny Rotten, anger is an energy. Anger with no object but a fake penguin doomed to ride in a circle for eternity, though—that could be the first rant of a month-long tirade ending with the shuffle of feet clad in Kleenex boxes.