What I don't want for Christmas...
I don't want no dumb ass silver car with a red ribbon on it, as per the Lexas commercial that attempts to hoodwink people into gifting a car for Christmas. I don't know exactly what it is about those Lexas commercials... But they make my skin want to crawl right off my body. It's not because I am envious of the perfect people with perfect lives, and unlimited income. I'm not one to get caught up with jealously, so that doesn't bother me. Besides, as I see it, I am a perfect person with a perfect life and seemingly unlimited income. ─ As long as I have plastic in my wallet. Is it the background music? No, I don't think so. As a matter of fact, I'd consider that jazzy "December to Remember" score is a rather nice piece of music. Perhaps, it's because someone gifting a Christmas automobile shines a rather unfavorable light at my own yuletide gifting. The lucky guys and gals on my list get my hand woven, elbow warmers. In the traditional blaze orange and green color scheme. A very nice gift for sure, but when stacked up against an automobile... Well, let me think, "What would I want for Christmas?" A luxury sedan... or hand woven elbow warmers... That is a tough decision, I'll admit.
I will say this; I surely cannot understand why someone would spend that kind of money for such a bland and generic assemblage of metal and leather. For me to spend over 40,000 bucks on a car, it better have a jet engine mounted on it! Or at the very least, mag-wheels and painted flames. Another thing, how about painting it with an actual color? You know colors, …like in a rainbow! Where do you see silver in a rainbow?
So relax, my dear friends and readers. You can save your money; I don't want no dumb ass silver car with a red ribbon on it for Christmas.
Those diabolically attractive people...
Now, consider a commercial of another type. The Old Navy TV commercials. Any or all of them. The latest, features an impromptu choir of good-looking people singing a corny Christmas song. I should be repulsed, but I cannot look away! It seems to put me in trance. Yes, it's all extremely lame. But I find the ultra campy look to be so comforting and yet so alluring. And those Old Navy actors, they're sooo freaking attractive. Diabolically attractive. I am unable to break my gaze. I'm tellin' ya, if by chance my TV got stuck in a repeating loop, like a skipping record* causing an Old Navy commercial to play over and over again. Man, I would be a goner. ─ Unable to move, even to fulfill a dire human need. Like getting beer or chips. It would be weeks or maybe months before someone would find my rotted and deSchlitzdrated corpse settin' there in front of the TV. My eyes, even as they decompose in my skull, still fixated on the campy exhibit of tactless commercialism. It's a wonderful life!
*I'm pretty sure TV's work on the same principle...
Hey Mr. Toy Importer: Insert this!
I am the father of three young kids. Ain't that amazing? I've managed to reproduce!!! As a dad, I spend my entire holiday putting together toys and trying to make them work. This entails studying crude drawings with Chin-glish notation, futilely attempting to piece together the random clutter of parts and pieces into a mastertoy of childhood delight. Or not! "Please to be sure that attach part A sharply as B is being assembled onto winged slot assemblage part sideways into same". Typically, after half dozen Schlitz malt liquors, a little blood and a lot more tears, I’ll have the first toy completed. ─ Just about the time Christmas dinner has achieved room temperature. Ta-da, I’ll proudly exclaim, “Here, ya go son!!!” Sure I missed Christmas dinner, but the excitement in a child eye is well worth the blood and tears. But of course, as things are these days, the toy doesn't come close to working as advertised. The excitement in the child's eye quickly turns to disappointment. However the disenchantment with the toys poor performance is not the problem for long, BECAUSE almost mercifully, the toy breaks beyond repair after about the third drive, fire, spin or deal of said child-slave made toy. Worn out and defeated, I'll usually try to turn this into a life lesson. "You see son, this is a useful lesson in life; Never, never get your hopes up and you'll seldom be disappointed”
It is just all so wrong. ─ At so many levels it's absurd. Are we not the greatest, the richest, the most innovative nation on the planet??? Aren't our brave men and women dieing on foreign soil right at this very moment just so we can propagate our excellent way of life? But we cannot manufacture a Mr. Potato Head toy in this country? Because we, the (former?) most productive labor force in the history of the world, requires something that approximates a livable wage. If it's too much to ask that something of quality be actually manufactured in these United States, can we at least utilize solid American engineering to design this crap? ─ Or have technical writers do up instructions that make a modicum of sense. Whatever the hell a modicum is. ??? (I think it may be the missing part that needs to get inserted in slot 3b).
So this Christmas, I’m declaring war. A holy war on junk toys. So beware Mr. Importer of junk toys. Check your manufacturers quality list and check it twice, because I am tellin' you this right now. If I have another experience like last Christmas with obscenely poor quality toys that do not work, I am going to drop in at your house on Christmas and 1st: Punch you in the nose. And 2nd: Slap your kids. Then you'll be in pain and your kids will be whining. And after I leave, you'll be getting a few thousand more visits from my loyal readers who will, I am sure, follow my lead and do the very same. She'll be a long, long Christmas for you Mr. Grench.
But to all the rest of you: I hope you have a wonderful and joyous Holiday Season.
S. Lyle OConnor can be reached at shawnoconnor@hotmail. Don't bother writing between December 24th and the New Year. If he's not in jail for assault and (with?) battery(ies), he'll be hunkered inside his underground workshop fixing a &h!+load of broken toys.
