PHTSD :: Post-Holiday Traumatic Stress Disorder

I think it should become part of the line-up, don't you? After a 36-hour crafting marathon, 6 hours of baking, an unplanned trip to the pediatrician's office and a crap-load of wrapping, I've decided that it should be a federal mandate that the day after Christmas also be considered a holiday. How else are you supposed to recoup?

It started innocently enough. I called the out-laws to check on the attendance for the Christmas Eve dinner. To my surprise, there were all sorts of people coming that I didn't know about.....and they all had gifts for the kid! "Oh, yeah, and Suzie from next door is coming with her second-cousin-twice removed. Just so you know, they're bringing a little something for Sydnie." So, of course, I feel obligated to bring something for them. This is when all hell broke loose at our house.

And yes, that's an empty pizza box in the bottom right corner.....because I was too damn lazy to a) cook the night before and b) to put it in the recycling before I started cooking. I know, completely ridiculous. Anyway, some yummy goodness came out of it all, like this granola.



After baking brownies, peanut butter cookies, this granola, blueberry muffins, chocolate cheerio trail mix and pumpkin apple bread, I made up 8 boxes and headed to the outlaws where we dealt with extended family and friends; always a great treat. My family is crazy in a funny sort of ha-ha way; his family is certifiably nuts in a "should be institutionalized" sort of way. Lots of yelling at their overgrown puppy that kept taking food off the table and discussions about pregnant dogs and their enlarged nipples. It was great.

Back at home, we told the kid that she had to let us sleep for 8 hours. We didn't care what time she got up, but she had to go to bed 8 hours before. So, she headed off to slumber at 10, but ended up bawling her eyes out in frustration over not being able to go to sleep. "How do people do this?? It's agony!!" she sobbed. I felt terrible for her so I laid down with her and ended up falling asleep myself. All well and good until I woke up at 12:30 only to realize that I still had to put one more coat of Mod Podge on her suitcase and wrap a few gifts plus stuff the stockings. First I tackled the suitcase and figured it would dry while I was stuffing stockings. It turned out pretty well.


After stuffing stockings, I decided I was far too tired to wrap gifts, so several ended up under the tree just as they were. We had a small stumble at 4am, but she went back to sleep after grabbing her stocking. As I peeled my eyelid open at 5:58, I could still hear her snoring and I smiled, foolishly thinking that she would sleep until at least 6:30.....a full 8 1/2 hours after going to bed.

At 5:59, a small finger repeatedly poked me in the shoulder while a little voice shout-whispered "It's 1 minute before 6!" The tree was opened before 7:30 and we then made the trip up north where my grandmother was her lovely self - slanderous remarks and all. Just the exclamation point I needed for my theme slogan this holiday season.

Wow! Where Has The Month Gone?

Somehow, I'm stranded back in the beginning of this month.....not quite able to move forward. My holiday shopping is done but I'm still lacking the Christmas cheer.....I think I'm emotionally scarred from the shopping incident way back. However, rather than rehash old news, I thought I would fill you all in on the latest and greatest run-in I've had with people in public.

This morning, after digging out from yet another storm, I stopped at the local ghetto-gas station to get a cup of tea on my way to work. It's 8:30 and when I pull in to the gas station, I'm not late....not even close. Just as I step up to the counter to pay for my $1.85 cup of tea, a man cuts in front of me. Here's what he has in his hands:

• A porno magazine
• A 6-pack of Miller Light

Here's what he asks the cashier for:

• A pack of Paul Mall cigarettes
• (2) $1 scratch tickets

His total? $16.67
How he pays?

• Several fistfuls of dimes and nickels

"You've got to be shitting me," I can hear you saying it. But, indeed, I kid you not. He literally pulled out all dimes and nickels to pay for his lovely morning party purchase.

Of course, I had only my debit card, so I wasn't able to just throw cash on the counter and leave. No, I had to wait for the cashier to painstakingly count out $16.67 in dimes and nickels. The man protested, claimed he had it all there....he wouldn't lie. But the cashier insisted that someone else had told her that, and he was $0.50 short goddammit!

After she gave him his 3 pennies and bid him farewell, she gave me my total of $1.85 and said, "What the hell is wrong with these goddamn perverts anyway? Dimes and nickels.....you know, he's lucky I took that. Most places wouldn't take that......"

I tuned her out, entered my PIN number and said, "Merry effing Christmas."

The High Price of Hannah Montana

www.hannahmontanatickets.net

So, any parent that reads this already knows what I'm talking about. If you are either not familiar with Hannah Montana, or are not a parent with a child that lives, breathes and dies by Hannah Montana, you can find a little bit of background here, here, and finally, here.

We, of course, parent a child that wants to go to the Hannah Montana concert when she comes to nearby Worcester (that's Wo-staaah for those of you not local). However, as the last article I linked you to correctly points out, some tickets are selling for $20,000. What?!? Nope, not a typo. It's true. Sick, isn't it?

However, we in Maine are cheap. We're really just cheap bastards. And primarily our cheapness is directly related to our way-to-high cost of living......I mean, pretty much, we just have no choice but to be cheap. So, a local radio station has come up with a contest for kids to win tickets to the Hannah Montana contest.

They've named it the "Mannah Montana" contest. All the screeching little girls need to do is get their dad, or other father-like figure, to dress up as the queen herself and snap a pic. Locals go to the website and vote for their favorite; he who has the most votes, wins. Now, I was already disturbed by the exorbitant cost of the tickets, but I think, after viewing 136 photo entries with the kid last night, that I'm far more disturbed by what this contest has created. Here are the three I find the most unforgettable.

Mannah Montana Contestant #21

Mannah Montana Contestant #22

Mannah Montana Contestant #26

I truly feel that after this much humiliation, these poor men deserve one of those Budweiser "Real Men of Genius" radio commercials where the guys is singing......."so here's to you Mr. Mannah Montana.....because only you can proudly say 'Yeah, I'm in touch with my feminine side.'"

Putting the "Happy" in the Holidays

So I made the mistake of going out in public yesterday; a Sunday. A Sunday only 3 weeks before Christmas, and only 3 days before Hanukkah begins. What was I thinking? I was still so worked up yesterday that I couldn't even talk about it. If nothing else, I learned one very important lesson: I should not be allowed to leave my house between Dec 1st and Jan 1st; individual lives depend on it.

After I dropped the kid off at a birthday party in the depths of hell, I headed to an adult version of hell; JoAnn's. All I wanted to do was grab something I needed to finish a gift. First, I encountered a girl, early 20's, gabbing on her cell phone while walking through the store. "Oh, that's understandable. Well, maybe you're spending too much time together. Hey, I can make you a blanket with pink heeeaaartss on it for Christmas? I know you're okay with pink, I know you're secure in your manhood." On, and on, and on. And she wasn't talking to a little kid, she was talking to some guy about the girl he was dating. I wanted to say, "Just tell him you like him, you want him to break up with the girl and get off the damn phone already!"

When I finally escaped her, I got in line to check out, only to get behind yet another woman on her cell phone; this one had a screechy voice reminiscent of Estelle Costanza on Seinfeld. The people in line behind me appeared, and smelled, as though they hadn't bathed in a week or two. Not that I have anything against that, but it was just not what I needed at the moment. So I held my breath, and rocked back and forth, waiting. Trying to be patient. But nothing is every quick, or easy, at Joann's.

In a fit of hysteria, I made the devastatingly poor choice of going to Marden's after I left JoAnn's. As we settle in for our first winter storm here in the Northeast, I was getting prepared to lose power, just like we always do. No power means we need candles, and there's no cheaper place to get them than Marden's. Unfortunately, every woman with more than one child was in the store too, and, with every fiber in my body, I had to resist the urge to stick my foot in the aisle and trip one of the little screaming, running, heathens. Only to pick it back up by the shirt and say in my most sympathetic voice, "Oh, sweetie, did you fall? Oh, are you okay? You shouldn't run like that. I really dangerous."

Had it been my child, I would have pulled her aside and in my Mommy Dearest voice, whispered in her ear, "If you don't stop your screaming and your running, I will drag you out of this store and make a huge scene. I will embarrass you to the point that you will never want to leave the house again. Do you understand me?" On the rare occasion that we have an issue in public, this usually does the trick. I hurry through Marden's, and when I'm leaving, I encounter the woman who is the source of all my angst. Yes, there were not multiple women with multiple children involved, there was ONE woman with many multiples of children running around. And as I pass her in the vestibule, she has an unlit cigarette hanging out of her mouth, a cell phone in her hand, an empty stroller in front of her, and she's screaming at the nation of children with her, and I quote, "Get you asses back in here. I'm not f**king ready yet!"

I ran back to the car, only to have two guys in a truck honk at me because I wasn't shoving my two small bags in the backseat fast enough - they wanted my parking space. Probably headed in to Marden's to try and score a deal on some camouflage huntin' geah or sumpthin. So, I backed my wagon out as fast as I could, and before I could put in first gear, their plow was looming way too close in my back window. Bastards.

The last straw was when I came home and got on the phone with my mother. My relationship with her is a funny one; sometimes we have lots to talk about, other times, not so much. Just like every family, we have a lot of dysfunction in our history. But we started talking about Christmas gifts and I asked her if she and her husband (that I am so fond of) would like a package from Omaha Steaks for Christmas this year. "Oh, why yes, that would be great!" Now, keep in mind, the someday spouse and I have told everyone, including her, that we are buying ourselves a new washer for the holiday, so "if you want to get us something, get us a gift card to Lowe's or something."

For the last 8 years, my mother has given me the same gift, a $50 Visa gift card; when I started dating the boy, she started giving him one too. So we thought we were in good shape, we could put both towards the new appliance. But no, not this year. The year that I actually need it, she decides to give him a gift card and buy me this. Now, I appreciate the thought behind buying me a digital picture frame where I can load up all my fabulous pictures and have them flash randomly around, so I can keep looking at them ALL. THE. TIME. Or, if I'm really lucky, maybe she'll load them with her pictures.

But I don't need it. What I need is a new washer that doesn't use 48 freaking gallons of water with every single load. What I need is that goddamn gift card that she gives me every year. What I don't need is a picture frame. I have plenty. They sell them by the dozen at Marden's for God's sake. So, while he's out buying fancy coffee with his Christmas gift, I'll be at home looking at flashing pictures of my mother, her yapping dog, and her drunk husband, passed out in the driveway.

Happy effing Holidays.