Guilt Trip: The Other Holiday Tradition

Ever notice how much trouble the holidays seem to cause? Between Halloween and Valentines Day are some of the most stressful and aggravating family situations known to mankind. Every Thanksgiving I have to suffer through the traditional family dinner, with a hefty helping of the traditional guilt trip, and a heated argument for dessert.
Typically these events include my Great Aunts (My father’s people) bemoaning the fact that I am not married yet (I’m in my middle twenties folks), that I haven’t produced another great-great niece or nephew for them to spoil (Again I’m only in my twenties), and that I simply refuse to dress in what they consider a feminine way.
Dress is a dirty word when it comes to me. These socially impressed articles of clothing are uncomfortable, ill-fitting, and completely against my idea of who I am as a person. Nearly all of my cousins and the other children in the neighborhood were male, so playing baseball or jumping on a trampoline in a dress was entirely out of the question. Besides that, most dresses have some element of pink in them and I have this intense aversion to anything that is pink. I feel that such things as the color pink, dresses, and the other trappings that define the female gender only hold women back: locking them into a stereotype that cannot be escaped from. Therefore I strive to be different. I wear pants to the exclusion of all else, reserving the dreaded dress for weddings, funerals, Christmas, and Easter. I am rarely seen without a baseball cap or some other form of hat on my head, many with my favorite hockey or baseball team’s logo. I want people to accept me for what I have to say, rather than what I am wearing. My clothes are not the latest style; in fact, I made it through four years of high school only having to buy new shoes and maybe five pairs of blue jeans. Most of my clothes were hand me downs from the one neighbor girl or, oddly enough, from some of my male cousins.
It’s odd that these elderly ladies bemoan my unfemininity when it is the fact that I had so many male relatives influencing me in my formative years. In many ways I have always been considered one of the guys. Most of my childhood friends were male and I just seemed to be one of the guys, even to this very day. I now have trouble trying to behave in more feminine ways, I tend to speak first and ask what I did wrong later, kind of like most guys I know. This is just the sort of thing that drives my aunts and my mother out of their minds. These women are constantly lamenting the fact that I would rather have a new hockey jersey than a floral patterned monstrosity for my birthday. A new baseball cap is preferable to makeup. In fact I see no point in paying good money for paint for your face, when you are just going to wash it down the drain at the end of the day. The other form of the traditional holiday guilt trip comes from my own mother. My mother bitches ( for lack of a better word) at me because I am not the child she set out to raise, how I am a constant disappointment to her, and that I take what is her hard work and pass it off as my own. It’s the little things that bother my mother. How I answer a question, what I say, what I think, why I am not as “productive a human being as someone my age should be.”
An example of this would be how my own mother ruined my Christmas Eve last year because I took some of the baked goods she had made (and there was a ton of this sugar laden stuff), mixed them with what I had done, and filled gift bags for my boyfriend’s family (along with things I had created myself). She cornered me after the evening church service and bawled me out, loudly, in our driveway over a few lousy cookies and chocolate covered pretzels. I mean the neighbors across the river could have heard her screaming at me.The funny thing is they same treats had to be thrown out a little after New Years because they were not consumed. This year she began her tirade earlier than usual, telling me that I was not to give away anything she bakes and if I want to give baked goods away, I can bake them all myself. I told her that she could keep her cookie, very politely, when what I really meant was she could take her cookies and shove them up her ass. Her defense is that she has never met the people to whom I gave those god damn cookies, when in truth she has always declined to met them.
Anyway to end this little rant and rave session, I suppose that is better to spend the holidays a select group of people, or alone. The fewer the people, the less chance you will have of suffering a Holiday guilt trip.

Isn' t love grand

I recently read an obituary in our local paper for an Amish man. Not unusual for some one living in Northeast Ohio, but what was unusual was the number of immediate relations listed in the obituary. Besides his wife, there were five sons, seven daughters, 91, count them 91, grandchildren, and 28 great-grandchildren. If just that immediate family got together and you included the spouses, you would wind up with some 300 people at these shin digs. I mean three hundred is the size of you average wedding, and this is just one side of the family! I mean, I know that the Amish Community is large in Ohio, but this one family is the local Amish Church. But over all you have to admire the love that couple shared was extrodinary.

Annoying managerial type people

Have you ever had the misfortune to be associated with someone who simply refuses to get along with you no matter how hard you try to make things work? No matter what you do to try and meet the person halfway they manage to both shoot you down and make you look bad at the same time.
This is the case with my latest boss. I managed to get myself into trouble about three months or so ago and in order to be reinstated to my previous status I was to make certain concessions, one of the specifics was the cooperation with certain co-workers. What I had not counted on was that I would have to sell my soul and throw my first amendment right to speak my mind out the window.
Amazing as it might sound I have achieved cooperation with these said co-workers and was demonstrating such when I was blind-sided by the boss, a skinny chimney-stack with little or no redeeming qualities or people skills. Lately he has been feeling as though no one respects him, in truth few of us do as he has done precious little for us to respect, and decided to take his aggression out on yours truly. This managerial twerp demanded that I stop what I was doing, which was helping one of my co-workers who always seems to get dumped on when it comes to sales setups, in order to do price changes because he was to God Damn lazy to try and do them himself. In fact the twerp is rarely seen outside his sometimes smoke-filled cave. When he does choose to grace us with his presence, he only manages to interfere with the smooth operation of cleaning, straightening, and restocking. The employees’ goals are to insure clean aisles, stocked shelves, and combat clutter. Twerp Boss is the exact opposite. He seems to revel in the fact that disabled patrons cannot get down certain aisles, that often an employee cannot find back stock in order to fill shelves and that the premises are in a general disarray. He is unapproachable, smells like rotting animal and vegetable matter, his breath at times could make a skunk cry uncle, and he makes it seem like asking him the smallest question is an enormous inconvenience. Ask for a day off, few and far between mind you, and though you get the said day off, you are punished for the next two weeks to a month as a result.

Christmas Lights

What is up with Christmas lights! They only come out of the box once a year, they worked when you put them away in January, but when you take them out after Thanksgiving half the string will not light! Or they will light only when held at a certain angle. Then there are the times when the damn thing blinks when it's not suppose to! And all the styles! When I was little there were between three and eight styles of lights. String lights in color or clear, bubble lights, chasing lights in color or clear, and C9 bulbs that hung outside. Now you have rope lights, cluster lights, novelty shape lights, icicle lights, the list is endless. And each one never seems to last more than two years, if that. Why on earth can't they make a Christmas light that will last?

Black Friday- the insanity of the season begins

I really would love to know what in the world possesses some people to spend their thanksgiving night lined up outside some department store in the freezing cold, sleet, and snow in order to pay $100 for a television set that was only $125 on Wensday. Why on earth should anyone have to be a trained athlete just to go Christmas shopping? I have aunts that lay out shopping plans like four star generals planning to storm the beaches of Normandy. What good is getting yourself maimed for the perfect present for someone if you won't be out of the hospital in time to give it to them? I plan on spending Black Friday quietly, except for the insane part where I have to go to work and deal with all these wack- jobs. Wish me luck.

welcome and other micellaneous shit

Welcome to my new blog!
This blog is now deicated to making fun of the establishment, using veiled references of course. I could get fired from my job if they did notwhat I post, although I am perfectly within my first amendment right of freedom of speech. Though the reader may not agree with my point of view, I say that if you don't like it don't read it! This blog will be dedicated to bitching about what annoys me most, be it family, friend, work, or the media in general. I promise a good time will be had by all, so sit back and watch the insults and insanity fly.