Relaxing at the
speed of light
By David Myers
And suddenly it’s
the holidays. I’m sitting at my folks’ house in
It was a nice, quiet Thanksgiving. Mom, Dad, Sarah (my Lab), Missy (my parents’
toy poodle that can march under Sarah as if she were the
I
just de-boned the turkey and gave my dog several scraps, which, in the spirit
of the season, she gobbled down. When she was finished she looked up at me and
said, “It would have killed you to save me some stuffing, a few yams maybe?”
On Saturday, we’re having a larger family
get together at my sister’s house. As I am responsible for providing dessert,
I’m bringing PEZ.
As I write this it is
Black Friday, so called because of the bruises people receive fighting over the
best sale. I headed out at 8 a.m. this morning and the parking was already
ridiculous. I came to the turn off at Target and wound around for nearly an
hour waiting for a spot. Finally one opened up, and as I began to turn in, a
little old lady in a Lincoln from half a mile away came barreling around the
corner at what NORAD would later determine was just slightly over the speed of
light.
All
I saw was a blur, and then the slowly forming image of a 5-foot woman with
purple hair opening her large,
I was hoping to find a nice digital camera
on sale. See, I few years ago, I broke my work-issued digital camera. Since I
broke it, I decided it only fair that I purchase a new one. A few weeks later,
I did just that.
You’d think that for $52 you could get a
higher quality camera than the one I purchased. Well, after suffering through
two years of less than high quality photos, I decided today to break down and
buy another, better camera, only this time combined with a video camera so I
can put cool video stuff on the diocesan website.
I walked into Target and saw two old men
fighting over an indoor golf putter. As I passed the dresses on the way to
electronics, I noticed several women battling over a sales rack. Suddenly one
uttered something into a walkie talkie. A youth in
the shoe department began providing cover by propelling slippers in the
direction of another woman, as the one with the walkie
talkie yanked several strapless evening gowns from the rack. Someone shouted
“incoming!” and a portly mother of three dove under a bunker of flannel evening
gowns.
I was in electronics for only a few minutes
when the mass of hurrying, anxious consumers busily sucking the Spirit out of
the season caused me to become depressed and make for the door. On the way home
I stopped at Walgreens for a quick coffee, and there spotted just what I was
looking for: a digital camera/camcorder on sale.
“My
sister has one of these and swears by it,” the clerk said.
“Will it give me good quality photos and video
-- photos I can print in a newspaper?” I asked in my best editor baritone, one
eyebrow raised in mock Spock.
“Oh,
yes,” said another, larger clerk (known in science terms as the “Alpha Clerk”),
who came over after smelling a sale. “This is exactly what you’re looking for.”
Terrific. I plopped down $49.99 and was on my way.
So,
here I sit Friday night. My parents are lounging nearby watching a movie in
which Nicholas Cage learns what his life would have been like had he chosen
true love over a high paying career. A commercial airs in
which a slovenly looking guy 15 years younger than me presents his wife and
himself with two very expensive cars for Christmas. I fight the desire
to reach through the TV and bop him in the nose. People don’t need to be made
to feel less than they are because they don’t have the latest and most
expensive of products.
After all, the Spirit of the season isn’t
about purchases, it’s about sitting in a warm room on a cold winter evening,
loved ones a whisper away, your dog twitching in her sleep as she dreams about
chasing rabbits and eating turkey -- only this time with a little stuffing on
the side.