I'm sitting in a coffee house in Nevada, MO. The overhead music is the Fort Scott, KS "Oldies" station. This "Oldies" station just played the Goo Goo Dolls' "Iris," a song I remember hearing a DJ say was "the newest from the Goo Goo Dolls" while I was driving my truck to school one morning.
I am stinkin' OLD.
Monday, January 19, 2009
My Grandpa is a Failure at Materialism
Cindy and I are under a curse. A curse? you say. Surely, Jim, you're not getting superstitious, are you?
I'll explain. My mom's family is a gargantuan, many-headed monster. I have seven aunts on this side of the family. When they all get together, I call it the Invasion of the Aunts. When we all get together, with all the uncles, aunts, cousins, cousins-once-removed, and various hangers-on and gate-crashers, there are enough of us to perform Riverdance (if any of us believed in dancing, that is... cough...).
So every year at Christmas, instead of everyone getting something for everyone (which would singlehandedly revive the US economy, if the buying-stuff-is-patriotic crowd is to be believed), we all draw names out of a hat (or box or basket or bedpan or whatever) and just buy one gift for a giant exchange. Everyone fills out a little four-question form saying what we're into and what stores and colors and sports teams we like, and this form is provided to the person who draws the name. And it's a lot of fun every year having everyone open the gifts, and then having a massive gift-wrap fight afterward. Wherein, you ask, lies the curse?
The curse, gentle reader, comes in this form: every year Cindy or I draws the name of one of my grandparents. Now don't get me wrong. My grandparents are wonderful people. Silas and Irene McGehee are two of the finest members of the human race. But they are utter failures at the grasping capitalistic materialism that most of us in America have mastered.
They fill out the little form with the most insipid answers to the questions. "What are your hobbies?" asks the survey.
Grandpa's answer: "Spending time with our wonderful family and friends."
The survey reels in astonishment, but dusts itself off and comes back for another try. "What are your favorite stores?" it asks.
Grandpa responds, "I don't really have any."
The survey, aghast, makes a last-ditch attempt. "Any specific gift requests?"
"That our family be unified and that each one be fully committed to Christ." NOT HELPFUL, GRANDPA.
HOW, I ask you, does one find a Christmas gift for such a man? He does like John Deere tractors and associated memorabilia, but he has literally everything there is to own on that score. EVERYTHING? you ask, skeptically. Yes. Everything.
And Grandma is no better. Now, a clever reader at this point would suggest, "Hey, why not make them something, if they're into stuff that reminds them of their family?" My response to you, clever reader, is that their legion of daughters is much more artistic, crafty, talented, and musical than I am. Everything creative and crafty has already been thought of.
Why can't we just draw the names of some real capitalists? The chances of our drawing their names every year are very small, but as I said, we're cursed.
I'll explain. My mom's family is a gargantuan, many-headed monster. I have seven aunts on this side of the family. When they all get together, I call it the Invasion of the Aunts. When we all get together, with all the uncles, aunts, cousins, cousins-once-removed, and various hangers-on and gate-crashers, there are enough of us to perform Riverdance (if any of us believed in dancing, that is... cough...).
So every year at Christmas, instead of everyone getting something for everyone (which would singlehandedly revive the US economy, if the buying-stuff-is-patriotic crowd is to be believed), we all draw names out of a hat (or box or basket or bedpan or whatever) and just buy one gift for a giant exchange. Everyone fills out a little four-question form saying what we're into and what stores and colors and sports teams we like, and this form is provided to the person who draws the name. And it's a lot of fun every year having everyone open the gifts, and then having a massive gift-wrap fight afterward. Wherein, you ask, lies the curse?
The curse, gentle reader, comes in this form: every year Cindy or I draws the name of one of my grandparents. Now don't get me wrong. My grandparents are wonderful people. Silas and Irene McGehee are two of the finest members of the human race. But they are utter failures at the grasping capitalistic materialism that most of us in America have mastered.
They fill out the little form with the most insipid answers to the questions. "What are your hobbies?" asks the survey.
Grandpa's answer: "Spending time with our wonderful family and friends."
The survey reels in astonishment, but dusts itself off and comes back for another try. "What are your favorite stores?" it asks.
Grandpa responds, "I don't really have any."
The survey, aghast, makes a last-ditch attempt. "Any specific gift requests?"
"That our family be unified and that each one be fully committed to Christ." NOT HELPFUL, GRANDPA.
HOW, I ask you, does one find a Christmas gift for such a man? He does like John Deere tractors and associated memorabilia, but he has literally everything there is to own on that score. EVERYTHING? you ask, skeptically. Yes. Everything.
And Grandma is no better. Now, a clever reader at this point would suggest, "Hey, why not make them something, if they're into stuff that reminds them of their family?" My response to you, clever reader, is that their legion of daughters is much more artistic, crafty, talented, and musical than I am. Everything creative and crafty has already been thought of.
Why can't we just draw the names of some real capitalists? The chances of our drawing their names every year are very small, but as I said, we're cursed.
Thursday, January 08, 2009
A small chuckle
Those guys at woot.com are masters of satire. Here's an excerpt from their live blog of Steve Ballmer's keynote at CES yesterday:
A musical-comedy interlude was provided by Aussie-sounding acoustic trio Tripod, who lifted their shtick from Flight of the Conchords the way Windows has lifted a lot of its shtick from Apple. We give MS points for hiring an act whose name includes the letters "ipod".
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