Ah, Christmas Eve. The day before the day. 24 hours before Santa and Jesus debate over who is more important. Christmas trees, lights aglow, the joy of the season in the air. Ah yes, this is a blessed day.
Blessed for most anyways. For me, this miserable holiday has been one candybag full of fart after another. The job gods have chosen to ignore my pleas for the past 4 months, so I am amidst all this yuletide spirit without a cent to my name. Naturally, no money means no Christmas presents, and thus no happy faces on Christmas morn. The small amount of income I am allowed to get comes from the selfless act of cleaning rich people's carpets whenever and wherever I can.
It just so happens, that one of these "whenever and whereever's" happens to be today. Some bored and wealthy housewife decides to wait until the absolute last minute to get her couches cleaned. I was riveted with glee, as you can imagine
I awaken myself around 7am. A time when most people are snuggled in their beds, dreaming of sugarplums and adultery. I, on the other hand, am digging through piles of underwear trying to find a clean pair.
I manage to throw myself into my trusty pickup and turn the key. It is now 7:30am. I am running on 3 hours of sleep because Christmas gives me nightmares. Nightmares which can only be cured by Cartoon Network's Adult Swim. I am tired, I am sluggish, and I am operating a motor vehicle going 75 miles an hour. There's a part of me that hopes the highway patrol will pull me over and assume that I'm a DWI. Why should I complain? Sober has I may be, I shouldn't be behind the wheel. Besides, a warm jail cell and a plate of canned mashed-potatoes and dehydrated turkey sounds mighty inviting right about now. Unfortunately, the fuzz are also snug in their beds, and I arrive unscathed at the local K-Mart to meet my boss.
I'm 10 minutes early, so I take this time to stroll into the K-Mart and officially declare it Christmas by taking a shit in the public toilet. The sight that greets me is strange to say the least. All the local K-Mart employees are staring down at their cash registers and price guns with a look in their eyes reminicent of the look a cow gives before slaughter. It's 8am, and aside from a handful of dedicated shoppers, the store is empty. It's the calm before the storm and they know it. In a few short hours, these aisles will be toppling over with the panicked cries of last minute shoppers. These men and women of the K-mart clan will be settling disputes between parents over which enraged parent deserves the last "toy that every child must own." My poor heart goes out to these poor souls, because on this day, the day of the birth of the lord, people die. My pity is short-lived, because I still remember that these corporate bastards chose not to hire me when I applied here 2 months ago. Suffer you pawns, Suffer!
Back to the setting, what really catches my attention is the music fluttering in the breeze. Eminating from the ceiling mounted speakers is not your typical Christmas standards, but an eerie mix of delta blues and TuPac Shakur. The blues in particular were my favorite, has they were not your usual assortment of "Merry Christmas Baby," or "Let's Boogie on down tonight," but rather your dog dying, woman leaving, drinking too much and waking up in a pile of vomit blues. It made a fitting backdrop the the Christmas lights and ornaments adorning the store.
Has I make my way to the restroom, I encounter the elder statesmen of Christmas shopping. Geriatric senior citizens in bright red shirts with fuzzy christmas trees, twinkle lights, and sequins galor sewn into the fabric. And the prowl the store like bloodhounds in search of more bright red fuzzy shirts to buy and and torment the rest of us who aren't color blind.
They stare at me with evil eyes. has I walk past in my levis and a mold-green shirt. I am ruining Christmas for them with my off-color clothes and unshaven face. To them, it is a sin in the very vein of banging Santa's old lady and drugging the reindeer with Mylanta.
They make it difficult to ignore them, so I pass my trip through the aisles of the K by imagining that instead of being in the store, we are all up high in the mountains, surrounded by a pack of hungry wolves. Wolves are probably feeding about this time, and I'm sure they would appreciate a slow-moving piece of meat, all wearing the brightest and most unnatural colors in the spectrum. Christmas dinner comes early for nature, and I get to watch it happen! The thought fills me with a sinister feeling of jolly-ness and glee.