GIFTING GHOULS

Like lovers in heat, merchants and consumers have a hot romance. Garbage dumps piling high with useless gifts that amuse for a day or a week or if lucky; a month. All year merchants highlight the better mouse trap. The newest, needed gadget is waiting for you. Whispering in your ear sweet enchantments that make you flush, make you gasp, make you want and want. More please, I need more. A commercial break from your favorite entertainment, and there it is. Awkward clumsy idiots spill and dirty the home. Inhabitants of those homes hurt themselves daily on the old and useless products of yesterday that the shiny new plastic upgrades will fix, for a time.

Polluting a planet and wasting resources, our love affair with consumption is sick.

A gentleman on the television jams a cotton swab into his ear far enough to swab his temporal lobes. He cries out in pain as a doctor explains you shouldn't do that. Brilliant. A woman cooks up a pot of pasta and as she drains it into a colander she clumsily dumps it all over as water splashes up burning her. The pasta ends up everywhere but where it belongs. Even the simple chore of flipping a pancake is a seemingly unattainable goal for the masses.

Then the seduction begins. No need for a cotton swab, get a little vacuum to clean up those ears. Blood starts to run, body heats up and senses heighten. No problem with pasta, get a pot with a strainer built in to the lid. Ooh, ah, fireworks light burning blue and red before your eyes. Make your pancakes in a pan that looks like a waffle maker, no flipping mess ever again!

Colors burning to intense white, I need it now!

So close, so close, but more is needed. Still unfulfilled, confusion reigns.

But then surprise, your lover gently strokes your back and a quick reach around flips your switch; two for the price of one! Yes. Two fine ear vacuums for ten bucks. A five dollar machine to vacuum the shit you call brains out of your ears. Nothing more than $19.95 and again, act now and get two. The call is made, and when the order has been placed, you set down the phone, body spent.

I guess it could be worse. You could end up with a Potty Putter; sitting on the john until you have a permanent ring on your ass. Maybe an energy bracelet that not only doesn't do anything, but looks pretty silly as well. Maybe The Happy Hot Dog Man phallic hot dog cutter and decorator will make your day.

After a little rest a new day comes, and with that maybe you will as well.

We spend millions on seasonal gifts that will last only as long as the attention span of the recipient. It will end up as a new ski resort after the mountain of trash is covered. We pollute the planet manufacturing nonsense, shipping the nonsense across oceans and expansive skies. Trucking to local cities and towns for a climax that lasts maybe seconds.

Happy Holidays earth, we left you a burning lump of coal once again.