Admitted. I’m sorry.
Shan’t happen again.
Thank you, Miller.
I hate Christmas trees.
Okay, actually I don’t hate the trees. I’m perfectly fine with other people having Christmas trees. I’ll even admit to admiring the ones towns/companies decorate outside. But
I DO NOT WANT TO HAVE A CHRISTMAS TREE IN MY HOUSE.
I do not want to rearrange the furniture to make room for it. I do not want to buy one. I do not want to put it up. I do not want to decorate it. I do not want to UNdecorate it. I do not want to be vacuuming up shed needles every day it’s there, and for at least two weeks after it’s gone!
<pant, pant>
As far as I’m concerned, the pleasure/pain ratio of the Christmas tree experience is about 1 to ten thousand. Hubby doesn’t hate Christmas trees the way I do (likely because he never had to do the work involved with one while growing up) but it’s not like he loves them either. He was perfectly cool with not having one when we discussed this, way back when we had just started living together. We’ve had many years of happy treeless Christmases.
So guess what my lovely inlaws ‘gave’ us for Christmas last year? Uh-huh. They showed up the Saturday before Christmas with a huge tree and boxes of lights and ornaments and all that crap. “It’s not going to be a problem” they said. “We’re going to set it all up for you.”
Right.
Except for my having to have the lovely living room that suits us perfectly totally disrupted. As in, the television got moved to a place you couldn’t watch it in comfort. As in our ‘reading nook’ got totally taken over.
Except for the gouge they made in the ceiling because, guess what, the damn tree was too tall.
Except for having to vacuum up not just pineneedles, but also the sawdust from cutting the tree down – who does things like that on top of an antique oriental carpet???
Except for the emergency trip to the vet when one of our cats wents nuts and tried to eat an ornament. (The cat survived. I can still see marks on the rug from his bleeding.)
Except for the hassles of getting the damn thing out of our house later on, shedding needles like mad each inch. (I did NOT undecorate it. Lights and ornaments all, out to the curb.)
So…why am I posting this now? I’ve heard via the grapevine that the inlaws think this was a wonderful idea. They want to make a TRADITION out of it!
Oh, joy, oh joy.
Bah humbug!
Tell the in-laws someone in your family has developed an allergy to pine and while you’re really, really sorry you just can’t observe a tradition that brings health risks, you’re sure they’ll understand.
Meanwhile… I was working yesterday. Someone wandering by opined as to how tragic it was that some unfortunates had to work on the weekends during the holidays.
Sister, I’d work every Saturday and Sunday between now and New Year’s if I could - what I NEED is a frickin full time job, regardless of days and hours. Trust me, MANY people right now would be HAPPY to be working on a weekend. Or a holiday. Or at all.
I said it last year and I’ll say it this year…if I can through the holidays without hearing “Grandma got run over by a reindeer” and any Alvin and the Chipmunks song I will consider it a boon. I absolutely hate them.
Oh, and since a certain someone is suspended from the Pit for two weeks it’s safe for me to post this now: on Monday we apply for food stamps. I hate doing it, but my savings are gone, just completely gone, and I have a choice between paying the rent and buying groceries, I no longer have the money to do both. So it’s time to bite the bullet. Fucking amazing - I work my ass off either earning money or looking for more ways to earn money and I still don’t have enough money.
Happy Fucking Holidays.
And I still have not got it through the husband’s head that NO, we can NOT do any gift exchanges this year. We don’t have the money. At all. Folks are getting our best wishes and a card appropriate to their religion or lack therof. That’s it.
Oh, Broomstick, I’m so sorry you’re having a rough time. Absolutely get the food stamps. Unlike some other people, I don’t begrudge whatever tiny portion of my taxes go to keeping people fed vs. a whole lot of more wasteful things our tax money goes for.
Damn the current economy. I know so many people, good, ordinary people, who are having rough times of it. 
BTW, and I hope you don’t take offense at this, but are there any local food pantries that can help you? Because, really, that’s the whole point of having them. Some times in the past I needed to turn to them. Other times I helped by working at them. Now, fortunately, we’re able to contribute. So I hope some feeling of shame or embarassment or whatever doesn’t keep people who need help from getting it.
Yep, we have local pantries. I’m sending the husband to the local one. You see, being Pagan and all I found my reception at the local church-run variety to be… um… unpleasant. Hard sell conversion bullshit, to be honest, I was about ready to either burst into tears or force-feed some people some canned goods or both, but bit my tongue because I needed it so fucking bad. Absolutely humiliating. Oh, and the constant badgering inquiries about whether or not I had a drug problem, gambling problem, domestic abuse problem, lack of education problem, lack of Jesus problem when the PROBLEM was LACK OF PAYING WORK.
Under the theory that my husband is both a fellow Christian and a gimp we’re thinking he’ll do much better dealing with these characters than I will. He doesn’t like playing the pity card but he knows how to.
Yes, I had the food stamp talk with the husband today to get it over with and it went much better than expected.
StarvingbutStrong, on this Christmas tree thing, one idea might be to purchase a very small tabletop-sized artificial tree. Minimal disruption of living space, no needles or sawdust, and if the in-laws say they’re buying you a tree, you can say, “Oh, we already have one!”
I’ve made close to nothing this entire year, working my ass off only to run into dead ends everywhere I go, and not having any kind of a social life. I’m M.I.A. according to most of my friends.
I guess I can’t really say I’ve got nothing out of it though, as I’ve learned more in this past year than I could ever comprehend myself learning in a single year. I just hate how others (mostly family) view me now; no good income = lazy :rolleyes:, no matter what I’m doing.
Cheers to having another broke-ass Christmas. Let’s hope next year has something better in store for us, as I don’t know how much longer I can take this crap.
Ironic that yesterday’s NY Times has an article entitled Food Stamp Use Soars, and Stigma Fades
Broomstick and EpicNonsense Just in case you don’t know if you live in a state with cold winters your state probably has a heat assistance program. It’s the only way I could afford heating oil this year.
I try not to feel guilty about taking help now, because I have given help when ever I could to others, but it is hard. Never thought that long haul truckers would be begging for jobs.
Contact info for state heat assistance programs: http://www.acf.hhs.gov/programs/ocs/liheap/grantees/states.html
As my heat is included in my rent at least I don’t have that worry… I just have to make sure the rent is paid! My electric is also included (water is from our own well). So utilities are not a concern as long as rent is paid. Thank Og for little favors.
But thanks for posting that information - it’s quite likely someone else will find it useful.
Back when we were poor, I was on a program that subsidized my antidepressant. I could get this drug at a reduced price at only one drugstore near me…and that drugstore had a teller who felt the need to spread the Gospel when she worked. Since I needed my medication, I just bit my lip and tried to get through the transaction as best I could. I’m sure she had the best of intentions, but her interjection of religion during a business transaction was…inappropriate.
Now, I rather expect some preaching and conversion efforts in a church related activity, but don’t they realize that a hardsell is far more likely to drive people away? I imagine that if you were a borderline agnostic, a gentler approach might lead to you joining the church, but this aggressive conversion would drive most folks away, as soon as they don’t need help any more. Asking, once or twice, if someone is having a problem with gambling or addiction or whatever is great. Constantly asking about these problems, when it’s clear that the problem is the lack of paying jobs, gets aggravating.
Was it Groucho Marx who said, look at me, I’ve worked my way up from nothing to extreme poverty? So many people have jobs that just don’t pay squat and more of them go to the food pantries.
Broomstick, I’m surprised to hear you are being preached at and asked nosy questions at the food pantry. They shouldn’t be doing that, even if they are at churches. I’ve never heard of preachy/nosy at the food pantries in my area, but it’s a large area and there are quite a few. Do you live in a small town? I’m just curious as to what kind of people would act that way.
Even though this is true you may still qualify for heating assistance – you’re paying for heat, after all, even though it’s included in your rent (which might be lower if the landlord weren’t footing the heating bill). Check with your local Social Services agency – you can probably get the answer from the same worker who deals with your food stamps application.
While Idle Thoughts’s post reminded me of this one petty irritation, it has nothing to do with the esteemed Ms. Stream:
“Christmas Carol” has a particular meaning, and it does not equate with “song with a seasonal theme, no matter what the content.” “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer” and “Silver Bells” are not Christmas Carols. “Winter Wonderland” has diddly-squat to do with Christmas; it could easily be played in July on the South Island, for pity sake. A Christmas carol is a song that focuses on the reason why Christmas is celebrated, what my more in-your-face coreligionists call “the reason for the season.” And as such they’re inappropriate in October or November – they’re for “the Christmas season”, which is evening December 24 through January 6, the Twelve Days, with or without leaping lords, dancing ladies, or freaking partridges perched in fruit trees. For many of us, “the hopes and fears of all the years” are indeed centered in Bethlehem that night. I don’t expect anyone else to necessarily subscribe to my beliefs, but just to give them the same respect a Muslim or a Pagan might expect fior hers. It’s annoying to have them blared at me for weeks before Thanksgiving, then stop short when they’re supposed to be used for celebration. Good King wenceslas looked out on December 26; the point to the freaking song is that the Christmas spirit should extend throughout the year, not just be limi6ted to one day a week before New Years. For a lot of us, it’s the celebration of something special – the love of God for all mankind made real in the form of a newborn baby, who would live and die as one of us. And for those who think that, and those who don’t but can grasp why it matters to others, it’s worthwhile to keep the idea that there is music that celebrates it separate from “Joy to the World! Our stuff’s on sale!” (Apologies to anyone for whom this was a bit more witnessing than the Pit allows – it’s an irritant to me every year to see something important to my beliefs turned into a way to sell more consumer goods, and this was an opportunity to vent that. Thanks!)
Maytag Support (maytagsupport@sndirect.com) needs to take a flying leap into a giant vat of Gofuckyourself. They’re the extended warranty service provider for my Sony bigscreen that just went south over Thanksgiving holidays. They won’t provide authorization to a repair place I’ve located, lined up, has the part and is in my area. Instead, later this week some other repair place will be dispatched.
Sorry to miss you Packers/Lions, Cowbots/Raiders, Giants/Broncos, Longhorns/Aggies, Texans/Colts, Bears/???, Steelers/Ravens.
And yes, you too Saints/Patriots this evening. I should have been fixed by noon 'cept Maytag can’t be bothered and give no reason when prodded… and prodded again… and prodded again.
List: Never buy any Maytag or Maytag Support related product - CHECK!
I could extenguish a large conflagration will all my airborne spittle. Gah!
“Oh a turkey’s insides are frightful,
but his thighs are so delightful…”
The Bears got pwned by the Vikings last night, with a victory made extra-stabby by having Brett Favre on their team. No, I’m not (that) bitter…