In my never very humble opinion, one of the most important things in the world is being at peace with oneself and with the rest of the world. Some things are important enough to get lathered up about. I don’t think that stupid music of any stripe is worth getting ranty over.
I actually do believe in things and stand up for them. They just aren’t the things you believe in and stand up for, it would appear. Or, at least, one of them is not piped-in poo-music. It doesn’t send me into a shouting rage complete with flying spittle, it mostly just makes me roll my eyes and finish my shopping as quickly as I can without having a panic attack from being stuffed into a cavernous shopping mall with another twenty thousand people…
Since it’s pretty clear that you don’t understand what I’m saying – whether it’s because you’re so angry or because I’m not being clear – let me clarify.
I think it’s silly to be rantingly angry about crappy, annoying music, to the point that it would drive you out of the store. But that’s just ME thinking it’s silly. If you find something offensive, you shouldn’t have to put up with it. Whether that means leaving or complaining to the manager or writing a letter to the music-piping company, that’s your affair. Just don’t expect much to happen – a request for Christmas music to get toned down is probably going to translate itself into adding one more Hanukkah song into the playlist.
I’m not saying that anyone who thinks Christmas music is irritating needs to chill. I’m saying that anyone who gets so angry that I can almost see the spittle hitting their monitor might want to consider taking a step back and re-examining their priorities. Whether or not you believe in Jesus or shopping, the end of the year is a fine time – as is any time, really – to sit back and relax and reflect on what is important to you. Maybe it’s the plight of wolves in Montana. Maybe it’s hunger and genocide in Ethiopia. Maybe it’s getting the damned hot water heater working properly. Maybe it’s unthinking religious oppression – definitely prevalent in the United States but not so crushing as it is elsewhere.
I just find it hard to get worked up about Christmas music. It’s annoying because it’s crappy music, but it’s more the crap and less the Christmas that irritates me. I’m not trying to be hipster disaffected, I’m just trying to save my fretting for thirteen thousand dollar hospital bills and friends losing their homes and the health and welfare of my family.
Besides – if you get frustrated at crappy Christmas music, YOU LET THE MUSIC TERRORISTS WIN.
I didn’t get that worked up over the music. Neither did MsRobyn. What angered us was the attack on the idea that not shopping there and complaining to the management was an inappropriate response. What upset us was the vicious response to perfectly reasonable behavior.
I don’t personally give a shit about Christmas music. I shop online. And I don’t really see what your point is, Ninja. “It’s okay to think it’s wrong, and take action, but not okay to feel something about that”? “It’s okay to get upset but only if I think it’s something I would also get upset over”?
You’re just spouting astonishingly empty feel-good bullshit, as far as I’m concerned. Your concern for my emotional health would seem a little less misplaced if you demonstrated that you actually had any idea what I was talking about, for one thing. And this is the Pit. Are you too dim to recognize Pit-oriented rhetoric for what it is?
Slightly hijacking, but it is the nauseous Christmas cards of a totally white, totally Gerber-baby-looking Baby Jesus, totally WASP-y 3 Wise Men, and totally almost-nordic-appearing Mary and Joseph that just grind my gears when I receive religious cards of this ilk for the holidays. I’m (sadly) as white and germanic and uninteresting as they come in racial appearance, but even if you buy the whole Jesus tale, the Mary story, and the Nativity thing, no one can possibly believe these folks were actually WHITE, can they?
I’m amazed and appalled at the audacity of even manufacturing cards with this broad a misrepresentation, yet I see a few every year. So yes, I too can feel for our other-faith brothers and sisters who have to somehow tolerate the whole annoying WASP-y package. Trust those who are saying this is an extension of business in the good ole USA, wrong in so many ways as it is.
This is exactly correct in my opinion. No one hates xmas more than I do but it’s a big deal for most of the people around me and many of them love this time of year so I keep it to myself (for the most part) and try not to be a buzzkill. It’s only when people try to force me into participation that they feel my wrath and it will be a wrath that they will never forget. Even that wrath is saved for people not getting the hint after a couple of minutes of polite refusal.
It’s not always easy being a non-Christian this time of year but over the long course of history, there have been much worse times and places to be Jewish to say the least. I just grit my teeth and get through it with no offense taken unless the offense is meant.
Are you too intent on being pissed off to listen to me? Am I being that obtuse?
I’m not saying it’s not okay to think it’s wrong and take action. I’m not saying that anything that irritates you needs to be vetted by me to decide whether it’s worth getting pissed off about.
I’m just saying that you seem to be getting, as we don’t say in Texas, mighty riled about what most people would consider a mild irritation. If I worked in retail and someone came up to me full of self-righteous indignation, infuriated that they were hearing a song they didn’t like on the radio and would no longer shop at our establishment, I’d nod and smile and mention it to my supervisor and take it about as seriously as I would a woman getting snitty about Llewellyn Press books alongside James Dobson’s latest spew of poo on paper.
If this is just overblown Pit-ishness and you aren’t as outraged (OUTRAGED!) at this situation… well, okay, whatever. In that case, you’re just annoyed that I’m being all reasonable in a Pit thread.
I can assure you I’m not losing any sleep over that.
Where does this imaginary scenario you just laid out come from, exactly? The angry customer spitting at management? Did it come from the part where I said I don’t even go out shopping, but do it all online? You’re inventing shit out of thin air.
Why do you keep talking to me if you’re not even reading my posts? How many times do I have to say ‘I don’t personally care about Christmas music as it doesn’t even begin to enter into my life’ before you stop lecturing me about your fucking bizarre hallucinations?
I don’t know about her, but I’m just sort of bewildered. I missed the “attack on the idea that not shopping there and complaining to the management was an inappropriate response.” and the “vicious response to perfectly reasonable behavior.” I guess. The only one I see attacking and being vicious is you. Some of us (the minority in the thread, even) are just sort of head scratching and going, “Well, ok, if you don’t like it, boycott, but I just can’t get too riled up about it, personally.”
I agree that we should get angry and up in arms and fight for what we believe in. This just isn’t it, for me. I’ll be over there working to keep abortion legal and fighting for same sex marriage. “Silent Night” just doesn’t get my panties in a twist.
I guess you did. Maybe you should read the thread like your friend Ninja won’t.
What do you want, a Not Riled Up medal? Almost nobody said this, anyway. What they said was that MsRobyn was crazy, uptight, had personal problems, etc. In fact, you’re implying the same thing – that anyone who cared enough about this to take action is just caring too damn much for your tastes.
Oh wait, it’s still okay to take action, just don’t have any emotions about it, that’s right. Do you ever actually think about what you’re saying? What are you fucking objecting to EXACTLY? Vitriol in the Pit?
Holy shit, I’m so glad you warned me. Here I thought it was possible to write a letter to a manager about Silent Night AND fight for my equal marriage rights. Whew, good thing you were here to stop me, or else when the theocracy comes everybody would know it was totally me and MsRobyn’s fault, for objecting to 24 Hour Jesus.
Yeah, that’s me. Total nutjob for advocating exactly the same thing as the people who are arguing with me about positions I’m not taking.
As for civil, I consider it one of my many personal fucking missions in life to keep the Pit from turning into the kind huggy suckfest you members of the SDMB Ladies Sewing Circle & Scrapbooking Club apparently so fervently desire.
I support this mission as a general principle, but if you diss Ladies Sewing Circles again I will have to come over there and punch multiple holes in your sorry stinking ass with quilting needles and embroidery scissors. (You know, the kind shaped like little storks where the blades are the beak and the handles are the legs? I always think those are so charming.)
I don’t much care what you say about scrapbookers, though.
I don’t quite agree, though. There seem to be quite enough “fuck yous” and “bite mes” sprinkled here and there upthread to keep the vitriol content from sinking too dangerously low. And I’m proud to say I contributed a drop or two of my own in the previous post.
That reminds me. Goddamn those motherfucking cockbiting frograping terrorist bastards who look at me funny when I wear my Ladies’ Needlepoint Guild And Terrorist Society T-shirt to the airport.
