Christmas, pissed-mas.

Yeah, yeah, so the title is extremely lame. I figure I'm allowed that kind of a break when you consider the shit I've been forced to put up with lately.

Let's put things into perspective here. I live in North America and I'm in my comfortable, plush double-sized bed, typing on a brand new Toshiba Satellite laptop that I just bought with part of the paycheck I got last week. I know full well that I have no right to be bitching about things when there are people out there in countries I can't even pronounce that eat dirty, broken shoelaces for dinner. (These people probably also have intestinal parasites to be able to digest said shoelaces, which is exactly how they stay so runway-model-thin!)

Regardless, bitch I will. Because it's finally December, and it's the holiday season. I don't even have to say which holiday, because it's been shoved down our throats from 360 degrees ever since the calendar flipped to November. Now, normally Christmas doesn't bother me so bad. I can't stand the two-months-early arrival, I can't stand the jingles, I can't stand the colours, and I certainly can't stand the commercials on my television trying to convey a sense of jolly, happy-happy funtime excitement that isn't the norm with 90% of the people it's trying to reach out to for a consumer base. But all of that is merely pet-peeve level annoyance at this point.

Because you see, I happen to have a roommate who actually spoke the words "I need one of those," during a commercial for--and I'll be genuinely surprised if I can get this out without crying at how sad some people can be--an electronic stuffed snowman sitting at a piano, bobbing back and forth while it pretends to play.

Look at this for a second. Somewhere along the Christmas timeline, someone rolled some snow into a ball. Then they did it again with a smaller amount. And a third time, the amount smaller yet again. They piled these three balls atop one another and decided that somehow it resembled a human being. Alright, I'll accept that.

Further down the Christmas timeline, someone came up with the brilliant query, 'what if a snowman was actually a man?' And then devised a theory about how this incredible idea could come to life, so to speak, and concocted this incredibly intuitive approach: a magical hat, set atop the smallest snow ball, would suddenly allow the inanimate materials placed onto him (among which are charcoal briquettes, twigs, and your common pre-julienned kitchen carrot) to become very animate and in his first five seconds of life, he knew how to skate, dance, and sing. Well, once you put the word 'magic' into it, then there really is no need for reason, now is there?

As sarcastic as all this is sounding, I'm not yet into the true nature of my discontent. Because now that this snowman (dubbed Frosty, at this point, which was all-too-clever... I would've went with Flames McGee or Patty Melt, to play off a misnomer, as in calling a fat dude 'Slim' or a midget 'Shaq') had his own childish poem, it was best to put it to song. And sing they did. Horrible rendition after horrible rendition of Frosty the Snowman has been sung for generations, and it never has gotten any better.

Oh! I stand corrected. For you see, there is now a snowman plushie. Oh yes, and he sits at a piano. I already mentioned that? Oh, my mistake. I guess I just thought I'd reiterate that it's A SNOW MAN SITTING AT A PIANO. He plays this ridiculous song and bobs back and forth and is generally annoying-as-hell for a total of about 80 seconds. I don't know how much the company (and forgive me for not knowing which one it is, I completely tuned out as soon as the commercial made me temporarily brain-dead) asked for this plushie, but I'm gonna go with a best-guess of '4 easy payments of $39.99!' Okay, so hyperbole aside, paying more than 10 cents for this thing would be far too much, with possible exception of those wishing to experiment with how well electronic snowmen react to Bottle Rockets.

So imagine my surprise as my roommate tells me, "I need one of those." I looked at her, dumbfounded. Well, maybe she was dumbfounded. Somewhere along the line there was dumbfoundedness. Anyway, I stared at her blankly, looked over at her collection of other electronic Christmas toys, and after wiping the drool suddenly falling down my chin from how utterly retarded I felt just being around her, merely said: "No you don't."

Not to be outdone, she cleverly retorted, "yes I do!" So now let me ask you... what about a piano-jamming snowman do YOU need in your life? Is it the bobbing? I can think of other things that have to do with bobbing that I much prefer. Is it the fake snow around him, which would easily be recreated by merely pulling a couple of cotton balls apart (completely justifying the inflated price tag, now that we're at it)? Or is it the piano-playing itself, which, upon further review, he's not actually doing at all? Don't take that the wrong way. I know the snowman isn't playing it. But also, he physically isn't hitting the keys. It's just sloppy craftsmanship, one more nail into the coffin of what might be the absolute worst invention in the history of mankind.

If you thought that I was completely done with my sudden, incensed tirade, you're partially right. Because there's not much more to say about it, now that--oh, yes--my roommate is now the very proud owner of the aforementioned product. She's got it set up in our now-shameful living room, right next to the snowman-and-dog combination, which experiment with epilepsy midway through "Jingle Bells," and right in front of her GIGANTIC Christmas-coloured slippers, which play some other godawful holiday-themed melody when you press the toe (to answer your question: yes, she does wear them).

Yesterday, while in a small fit trying to find an A/V cord, she thought it would be a great idea to 'cheer me up' by playing all of her plushies at once. And I am proud to say that somehow, some way, I managed to dig deep into my psyche and curl up in a corner of my subconscious, allowing myself to survive the torture long enough to release the tension here, at my infrequently updated LiveJournal.

Thank you for reading.