The Sedated Ape

No one in my family came from Canada or England* , but we used to celebrate Boxing Day anyway. On the 26^th of December every year everyone in the family would gather at night for a round robin bare knuckle boxing tournament. If you’re lucky you drew Grandma in the first round. She was pretty old and couldn’t move very well anymore, which made her susceptible to good quick jabs. This was almost as good as drawing a “bye”

Later we discovered we had misunderstood the concept of the Boxing Day holiday, but I still think our way was more fun.

The real Boxing Day derives from the Anglo-Saxon tradition giving seasonal gifts to less wealthy people and social inferiors on the 26^th of December. In the United Kingdom, this was later extended to various workpeople such as laborers and servants… now it’s just for anyone who you feel superior to that you didn’t feel were worth giving gifts to before Christmas…anyone that you want to remind that you are better than they are and that they should feel honored that someone so obviously their superior should acknowledge their pitiful meager existence at all. Even if the pittance you bestow upon them is a day late.

The exception is when the 26^th of December falls on a weekend. Then it’s celebrated on the next weekday. The reason being that if you gave gifts to the filthy poor on the weekend their excitement would cause them to show up late and/or drunk for work on Monday.

Now the holiday is generally a day when you go buy things for yourself at a post Christmas sale prices and keep it all, reasoning that if your social inferiors want gifts they should quit being so inferior all the time. Then they would be allowed to celebrate the birth of Christ with the decent folk.

They also have a similar holiday on February 15^th where you give ugly poor people cards that say “Would you be my valentine if you weren’t so unattractive and so far below me in every way?”

*As far back as we can tell our family descended from an ape-like man who lived in the savannahs of Africa, but that’s just a family legend. I have no way to prove of disprove it since granddad died in 1970 – four years before I was born. But from photos he did seem pretty hairy and he did have a tail. So we are probably either ape-man descendents or Italians.

Christmas will be here before you know it, Especially if you’re like me and are too cheap to buy a new calendar every year.

I’m not a big fan of the holiday because it’s when it’s possible that a group of strangers might show up at your house uninvited and start singing. And the cops won’t do a damn thing to stop them. The way entertainment is supposed to work is you go to them, or you ASK them to come to you. No one tries to stage a scene from Othello in your backyard for a lark. I resent having to take part in mandatory unsolicited entertainment.

Christmas is the only holiday where that happens to you. Well, one time someone did show up at my door and start singing on St. Patrick’s day, but it was just the one guy and was really drunk. Which actually DID make him a little entertaining. – you could try to guess what he was singing. It was either “Lucille” the little Richard song, or “Lucille”  by Kenny Rogers. Or maybe he wasn’t really singing at all, but was under the impression that someone named Lucille lived in at this address and he wanted to talk to her. When someone is that drunk it’s hard to tell if they’re singing or not.

Anyway, this is Christmas stuff I’ve posted here before, but decided to combine into one Christmas theme post, so you can all e-mail it, link to it, print off copies to nail to phone poles or just copy and paste it and tell people you came up with it on your own. Spread holiday cheer. Besides, unless you’ve read through all the stuff here you might have missed it. And wouldn’t that be a shame? Plus the letters are now colored green and red. If that ain’t festive I don’t know what is. (Seriously. I’m not good at that kinda thing.)

” You know how on Christmas carolers come and demand some Figgie pudding and say “they won’t go until they get some”? Well, they’re bluffing. After three days they give up an go home”

“I used to write poetry. I never was very good at it, but I am kinda proud that I’m the first poet to ever rhyme the words ”Christmas morn’” and “Granny Porn.”

“For a little while last December I thought I was God because someone sold me a Christmas tree.I had the saying wrong. Only God can MAKE a tree, but they’ll let pretty much anyone buy one. I really should start paying a little more attention to the world around me.”

“Christmas memory – I got a Nintendo system for Christmas right after they first came out. It was what I asked for, but the game seemed a lot more fun in the commercials. The game I got was called “Staring Contest”. You played against Walter Mondale, the idea was not to blink your eyes before he did. Years later my mother admitted that she just taped an 8″ by 10″ photograph of Mondale to the TV screen, and the “Nintendo” machine was really just a shoe box with a cat toy for the controller. Anyway, don’t ever get into a staring contest with Walter Mondale. He’s REALLY good at that game. I only won once in the whole time I had the game.”

“When I die I’m leaving my body to “Toys For Tots”. I think children all over the world will behave a whole lot better if they knew that if they were bad Santa might bring them a rotting corpse for Christmas.”

The earliest memory I have of Christmas is walking to the K-mart with my sister on Christmas eve to see Santa and ask him to bring me a fire truck . Sure enough, Christmas morning there was the fire truck I asked for, but by that time the fire had already burnt out on it’s own. In retrospect I probably should have asked him for a ambulance too, because my birthday isn’t until March

This is a screen capture from one of Missouri’s official state tourism web pages:

Here is a map that shows where Missouri is in relation to Disney World:

I understand what they’re trying for here. Disney did live in Missouri until he became successful. Then he did what any sensible successful person would do.  He moved two thousand miles away and never looked back.

And if Missouri wanted to latch on to Disney for tourism reasons why wouldn’t they use the first, more famous park, Disneyland?  It seems kinda cheap to hype Disney World when Disneyland was available.  They might as well have  said “birthplace of Walt Disney, creator of the classic movie “The Ugly Dachshund!”

Since it  seems like Missouri tourism needs my help, I came  up with two new ads.

and…

I’ve been watching my mother’s Shit-Zoo dog while my folks are in Florida. It’s kind of a foofy breed, but he’s pretty nice.

Anyway, they’re about to come back so I thought it would be a good idea to take him to get groomed and cleaned. I tried washing him myself once, but he was mad at me for two whole days after that. I can’t blame him really. If he tried to give me a bath I’d be upset too. Mostly surprised, but also  upset.

When I went to  the dog groomer lady to make an appointment for him  she asked me what his name was, so she could write it down in her appointment book. I told her his name is “Osama”.  She seemed to really be upset about that and wouldn’t write it down in the book. After a while she just wrote “N/A”  In the spot for his name.

His name isn’t really Osama, I just made that up.  But I never would have guessed that there would be a rule about not naming your pets after terrorists.

Whenever there is a cold day, don’t say “Whatever happened to that global warming everyone is talking about!?!”

One- You not the first person to come up with that little bon mot. You’re not even in the first five million. Even Ziggy and Jeffy from “The Family Circus” have beat you to it.

Two- I don’t pretend to understand all the science about climate change. But I’m pretty sure the theory  of global warming doesn’t boil down to “you’ll never need your jacket in December anymore”.  There’s a little more to it than that.

It’s just a matter of time before someone somewhere decides to start writing LOLCAT erotica. And there isn’t a damn thing any one of us can do to stop it.

I can’t even type the pseudo-word LOLCAT without cringing.

I don’t normally dress up for Halloween, but last weekend I was able to pick up several adult sized Halloween costumes.  Since it was during the last of November I was able to purchase them a  large discount – 80% off.  For just over a hundred dollars I was able to pick up fifteen whole outfits. Good luck trying to find normal clothing that cheap!

There are some drawbacks. A grown man walking around in December dressed like a ninja, vampire, Spongebob, werewolf, mummy, zombie or pirate will get a lot of strange looks on the street. But with savings like this,  odd looks are a small price to pay.

And there will always be a few smart ass comments from smart alecs you pass on the street , but that just shows how ignorant they are!  What’s so funny about saving money on clothing?  Besides, what if I turned out to be a real ninja or werewolf and not just a guy in a costume? You can bet he’d regret making fun of me then!

In every workplace there is always one acknowledged prettiest girl at work*. When they hire someone new who is more attractive to work there the former prettiest girl will stop caring about her appearance and often will gain a lot weight and start dressing poorly.

Within a year, new people will be amazed that everyone used to want to sleep with her. But most will admit that they still would if they had the chance.

 *Except in workshops and schools for the blind. In cases like that the rule becomes “The girl who smells the best at work rule”