I vow that the Christmas just passed will be the last that I ever purchase gifts for loved ones, or unloved ones, from a shopping mall***** (see note below)
Consider this my confirmation.
I’m sure the managers of shopping malls across the country are quivering with fear that I will take my business elsewhere seeing I spend such a huge amount of money, but they will just have to get stuffed for now, and rely on the millions of other Christmas shoppers.
I am thinking of boycotting Christmas gifts altogether anyway as my financial position is to the point of overstrain when I have to buy more than one gift at a time, and on the flipside the gifts I tend to receive are always stupid or fattening eg. a rank t-shirt with ‘Aotearoa’ written on it, a cheap snorkel, or disgusting, yet eatable, chocolates.
So I would prefer to neither be a Christmas receiver, nor giver. I think that is fair.
I am aware it sounds very grinch like, but I honestly don’t give a flying crap as Christmas tends to be totally boring anyway because everyone falls asleep on the couches around one second after eating lunch and there is never anywhere to sit. Unless you feel liked getting breathed all over. Which 9 times out of 10 , I don’t.
It is about this time that I try and turn the TV on to watch a video but usually my mother AKA The Morning Stomper will briefly awaken with one eye open like a sleeping dragon guarding a pot of gold to mutter:
‘We don’t need that on on Christmas day, we’re here to be together as a family. Not to watch TV. Be social.’
‘TV is social,’ I would reply ‘it brings everyone together to watch the same thing. Besides, who gives a crap, everyone is asleep’
‘Well read a book,’
‘Reading is the ultimate in antisocial behaviour, and goes against your argument.’ At this point I will usually spin on my heel, leave the room and head out to my Aunt Raechal’s pool and do dives, bombs or play Marco Polo with the kid cousins. Although this gets depressing as they are usually talking about what great gifts they got for Christmas. Eg some skis, a gaming console or some kind of remote control flying thing which I will never be able to work.
I however on this 30th Christmas of mine received none other than…
A first aid kit. With regards from The Morning Stomper, it was complete with gloves, antiseptic cleansing wipes, scissors, an instant ice pack and a thermometer that I believe to be specially designed for someone’s butt, this will go down as the present I will be most overwhelmed by in my life thus far.
I have officially never heard of anyone receiving a First Aid Kit for Christmas before. Especially as their main present. I was slightly cheered by the fact that my 16 year old brother also got one and was unwrapping it the same time as me on Christmas morning.
‘What the fuck is this?’ he said bewildered.
‘I got one too, I thought it was a toilet bag at first’ I replied.
He looked at me with confusion in his eye as to why he as a 16 year old child would be receiving this gift for his Christmas present.
‘Does yours have a shot of adrenaline in a hypodermic needle?’ I asked.
‘NO! Does yours??’ he replied, thinking that there may have been a silver lining to this Christmas cloud.
‘No. If it did, it would have immediately stuck it in my neck to celebrate this amazing, amazing gift.’
We sat on our grandparents couch for a couple of minutes in silence before I asked him:
‘Can I give you stitches?’
‘No,’ he replied. Slightly disappointed, but unsurprised at his reply I walked off with my First Aid Kit to put it somewhere safe to make sure it didn’t get stolen. Although part of me felt that it was unlikely, a big part of me.
I shouldn’t complain as I was also given a portion of money, which I vow to spend on drugs and/or something from an Info-mercial for my pig Kenny Powers.
Although some things about Christmas are horrible, horrific, painful and rank,
there are some positives.
I am a big fan of hanging around my weird family and realizing it is not only me who is strange. But I am really an offshoot of a much bigger, more powerful machine of weird and wonderful. And, knowing that I, amongst all these incredible humans, am am surrounded by some of L.T.W’s (Life’s True Weirds). They seem very interested in my life which is the main thing, as I know they are not pretending to be. For example:
Uncle Mark: “Hows America Reub?”
Me: I am based in Berlin
Uncle Mark: “Great!”
And
Cousin Eric: “Where’s your pig?”
Me: “Up your butt, round the corner”
Cousin Eric: “all the way to California?”
Me: “I haven’t heard that before, that’s good. My pig Kenny powers, aka Kenny Powers The Great is at a farm stay for two weeks.”
It is also a great time of year to ring up the Intercity bus company, as it is very busy period for them therefore a huge waiting time before an operater answers; and the hold music is just fantastic. Sublime in fact. When they do answer, you can just say ‘Sorry, wrong number’ and hang up, then just press redial. I highly recommend this unique experience.
I spent around 25 minutes on it today and was really ‘getting in to the groove’ before some jerk answered.
It is also a valid time to send out a group text message to all your friends, allies and enemies.
I kept mine to the point with:
‘Merry Christmas, Kind regards, Maniac’
and although I got some replies like
‘Who the hell is this?’ (To which I replied ‘Maniac. PS. Merry Christmas!’)
and
‘Is this a group text?’ (To which I replied ‘Correct!’)
and
‘Who are you calling a maniac’ (To which I replied ‘Who is this? Have new phone, lost lots of numbers, kind regards Maniac’)
and
‘I haven’t heard from you all year. But thanks for the Xmas group text.’
(To which I replied ‘Tis the season!!!!!!!’)
and
‘Who is Maniac?’ (To which I couldn’t be bothered replying as I felt I was defeating the purpose of the whole group text idea)
I felt it was a good way to touch base with some people I have not contacted in a while.
I also don’t see what everyone’s problem is with group texts. Yes they are impersonal HOWEVER sometimes it is just too annoying to write to a bunch of people and also, it is very handy if you are short on time.
Eg. When you are driving or obviously, when Armageddon comes (god willing it is in our lifetime).
On that fateful day nobody is going to have a whole lot of time to text everyone seperately in their phonebook to say goodbye. And I’m sure people will appreciate the sentiment if they receive something along the lines of:
‘See you in hell guys! Kind Regards,Maniac. p.s How crazy is it that someone predicted this thousands of years ago?! Incredible!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!’
(I would purposely use up all the spare letters left in the text on exclamation marks, as it would have some sort of ‘closure’ and I suppose ‘value for money’ if that makes sense.)
Even if it isn’t totally personalized, this is an efficient way to say, farewell.
*****Hatred Of Shopping Malls: (a sidenote)
The reason why I hate shopping malls so much is because I have an uncanny knack of making eye contact with pregnant women just after I have looked at their obviously pregnant stomachs. It is a cross I know I must bear, but the situation is still unfortunate nonetheless. Especially since I tend to screw my face up slightly if there is any midriff or BB (belly button) showing, which tends to happen a lot.
I also feel guilty somehow that they are pregnant and on top of that the Commodore’s/ Lionel Richie song ‘Three Times A Lady’ always goes off like an alarm bell in my brain. Sometimes I find myself humming it and pulling Lionel Richie faces, which is not really the best idea if the pregnant woman in question is within earshot.
As I am wanting to get in and get out of those hated shopping malls, the last thing I need on my mind to confuse and disorientate me is an R& B legend like Lionel Ritchie (aka Lionel Ritchie, Your Whole Style’s Bitchy).
On top of this, I also find pregnant women look very suspiciously at everyone else in the shopping mall who are NOT pregnant, which I find very rude and especially annoying around Christmas. This makes me want to go over to them and steal their shopping and hastily leave the premises.
Only because I know I could outrun them and would teach them a lesson for looking so suspiciously at good, decent, un-pregnant hard-working people, NOT because I want to keep any of their items they have purchased,
which would most likely be:
a) Body Butter
b) Biscuits
c) A celebrity maternity book by some annoying woman with a 90s haircut like Jude Dobson, or that other annoying chef woman who looks like a bread roll. Her name escapes me. But she is very bread roll like, I can confirm that.
These are some valid reasons to avoid shopping malls, which you should do at all costs unless you are going to the movies and can just get in through the top entrance. It is very rare to see pregnant people at the movies anyway, as they are usually a bit too fat to sit in the seats comfortably, and are probably paranoid that their water could break at any second.
