The option of announcing to the family smiling around the tree in their pajamas, that this year you’re doing something special, something meaningful, so go get dressed and ready to serve up soup to people who don’t have anything under the tree and no tree at all, and no you won’t take any back-talk, we’re doing this as a family just get in the car notwithstanding, you’ve got a couple of fallbacks.

With the exception of kids, and they’re easy to shut up with toys anyway, you can cop out on any gift and give gift cards.  This year it’s even easier than ever to give the gift that says “I thought of you eventually,” since places like Walgreens and Circle K carry the “Gift Card Mall.”  It’s a rack of gift cards from vendors like iTunes, Best Buy, and any place else you either can’t go physically or would be stupid to try this late in the game.  As long as you’re shopping at the gas station, go ahead and get some scratch-offs.  Nothing says Christmas miracle like a pennies from heaven.

If you can, shop at free-standing stores that you’d normally see in the mall, like book stores and stationary shops.  They have smarmy seasonal crap mixed in with things you’d probably not be embarrassed giving to your loved ones this year.  Books are a good choice, as are the CDs usually sold there.  Combine the two and get a book on CD, proclaiming to everyone that you value their time and have bought them the precious gift of multitasking.  Can’t read the book AND clean the house at the same time?  Here you go, honey.  Hell, if you’re really capable, buy a single magazine from the racks and then go online or on your phone (use the number printed on those millions of cards that will shower your feet as you flip through the pages showing you how your life could be, if you were better looking or smarter) and get a subscription for a gift.  Bonus: no wrapping.  Gift cards are sold here, too, so they can come and get their own damn crap.

But as long as you’re online, there’s still time to get everything shipped to you by the ‘Eve.  See if precious darling has a wish list on Amazon, a list that keeps on asking year-round.  Go and get those special iPod cozies, cuff links, or barbeque tongs, although it’s too late for engraving.  Sorry.  In fact, you’ll be biting your nails wondering if that overnight shipping will come through in the clutch, but you knew it’d come to this. Give the unique gift this year and register a domain for darling, join Facebook and make your kids your number one friend, or buy some Google AdWords proclaiming your affection for… someone.  It doesn’t really matter who.  As long as you’re giving kooky gifts, no one can say you’re a cheapskate or thoughtless for putting finding that one precious gift off until the extreme last minute.

So here’s what’ll really happen: for him, you’ll run to Autozone and put together a “gift pack” of wiper blades, shop towels, Armor All, chamois, and the all-powerful gift card.  Throw a Lowe’s card in there, too, while you’re at it.  You’ll dump it all into a bucket and top it with a bow and call the thing done.  For her, you’ll fight traffic to the malls, cause you’re a sucker and can’t think of a jewelry shop anywhere else, and you’ll get her something beautiful but ultimately empty and misconstrued.  For the brood, just give them money.  It’s what they want from you anyway.

1) The NFL network and Time-Warner (Austin) are all in a tissy because they didn’t play the Cowboy game on normal cable, and so people had to go to bars. Oh no, you might actually prevent a recession by spending money locally. Careful. Or oh no, you’ll have to go to someone’s house who has the NFL network, interact with them and their friends, and otherwise be social. Either way, you’re screwed. They asked the Texas legislature to intervene. For TV. For entertainment.

2) The government has been requested to monitor and keep track of how speculators affect world markets. Well, duh. Tangential to this, they’re expecting the fed to fuxor with interest rates again today, to bail us out of something horrible we got ourselves into.

Look, networks can broadcast what they want and to cable companies they want. Cable companies can carry them or not. (Don’t get me started on the monopoly cable companies have on MOST areas. That’s truly horrible.) It’s — stay with me here — entertainment. That’s all. It’s not like the cable company is denying us public tv or educational material we need to run our lives. Which, ya know, we all get from TV.

Furthermore, we got all those horrible mortgages. We said yes, we’ll pay that rate. Yes, I want a huge house in the right neighborhood. Yes, it’s as big as my neighbors’. Yes, I’m awesome by owning junk. Possessions make me cool!

If anything, let’s legislate how effing unwilling everyone is to be responsible for themselves. How about, let’s make a talking Jesus doll to tell our children Bible stories, cause we ain’t got time for that shiz.  Let’s legislate frowny faces, overweight, and every other form of not-my-fault unhappiness.  Heck, let’s take free will out altogether and just let some corrupt fat-cat decide on what is right and what is lobbied most lucratively.  Oh, but that’s not anyone I voted for, cause I also need someone to legislate me to vote, too.

Screw you, company.  I would have rocked with your company.  Like, you would have wondered how you ever got along without me.  But no, you have to go and remove the job req from your website.  Word is you had someone tapped for the job to begin with.

That’s not just dumb, it blows.

Now it’s just sour grapes, stupid company.  I plan to never buy your sweet, delicious, awesome products.  They’re over priced anyway.  I mean, I would only just be more productive and happy with your products.  Who needs that?  Not me.  I’m content, ECSTATIC, with my inefficient fumblings with my current products.  Getting better stuff would just leave me empty and without any real purpose or hope of better.

You know who I find to be irritating?

Others.

If it wasn’t for them, all of Ron [Paul] and Dennis [Kucinich]‘s ideas would work.

But others always mess this shit up.

Like that guy who ruined pumping gas before paying for everyone.

Stupid others.

In a country the size of America, where the push is on to make every state have the same laws as all of the others, under the supreme law of the Federal government, (instead of autonomous mini-countries loosely affiliated and banded together for mutual benefit), we are inevitably going to be left with middle of the road, politics as usual, blah blah blah, because in an effort to please all the millions of people , NO ONE is happy.

It will NEVER get better because there are Too. Many. Damn. People.

Thankfully, “bad” here compared to everywhere else is not even worth comparing, so there ya go.

I like watching TV and playing video games.
That will be all.

Day two: edited two sentences.  Yup.  So.. that’s about it.  Um… Can I go home now?

Turns out, after I make my edits, I send them to someone else to actually format and publish.  Which.. is pretty redundant.  Can you, like, not make me rush around for this job and then have nothing for me to do?  Sweet, thanks.

Let the games begin.

From that point, anytime I was feeling annoyed at work I would call him and waste his time and incoming minutes.  Repeatedly.  I would also put his number into any web form that I thought might actually use to call me.  In the same way, I use spam@[websitei'mat].com for my email address.  And guess what?  It’s often already in the system.  But I digress.

So the moral of this story is don’t be a douche.  It doesn’t take time or effort to simply not be a jerk.  And if you are and your number ends up on some list somewhere, maybe you’ll know why.  Just sayin.

This translates into a bunch of jerks cutting off a woman with a stroller, in some cases looking at her trying to get into “line” (a term I put in quotes as it is so much more akin to a seething blob of huma-cattle) only long enough to make sure their briefcase and wheelie bags don’t hit her. Or maybe they thought she was horning in on their stuff. Not sure. Don’t care. Point is, they didn’t have the decency to let her go first with her kid. It’s kind of like the sign in the T that urges passengers to let pregnant women sit first. Sheesh!

Second, people online are jerks. They post nasty comments* and troll forums. Get a blog and rant in it, like this. Kick puppies on your own time. *grump*

*So far comments here have been pretty nice, and I appreciate that.  I’m actually talking about comments on other blogs that are legitimate and add value to the world’s knowledge.  But if you need to blow off steam, this is the place.

So far it seems like your basic CF: I’ll have 2 bosses in actuality, one from my “parent” company, one for the company to whom I’m contracted. I’ll have 2 holiday schedules to deal with, and a bunch of policies at my parent company that date to the fifties. Women can wear culottes if they have the appearance of a skirt. Oh, goody. I wonder if my apron will be optional, too.

Communication seems pretty thin, and the job description seemed pretty undefined once I got in there. The job I was offered sounds now vastly different than the reality. Well, it gets me working, paying the bills, and otherwise gainful. And isn’t that what it’s all about? You’re not worth anything if you don’t have a dollar sign next to your head. And they’d better be big dollar signs, too, dad gummit. Small ones mean you’re not trying hard enough to succeed. How else can you be happy, slacker?

I can’t wait for my first sick day, which will count as a vacation day. As will the second. The third day I’m sick, though, that’s when the payoff comes, boy! Freebie!! Oh, except none of that can happen until 90 days in. Well, here’s hoping for good health through the new year! Hrm.

For those of you who are total d-bags, screw you.  Yeah, you, lady.  The one who couldn’t spare a smile, walked away with that sour look on your face.  Know what?  Your daughter had that same look on her face.  I smiled at her and she didn’t know what to do.   She honestly was unprepared for human connections.  At 11 or 12, she had no clue how to deal with a simple smile.  Way to parent, ho.  Guess what?  I got so many compliments from people, just because I know how to smile.  The world loves and is refreshed by humanity.  I’ve got it, and you don’t.  I rant here, where you can’t see my face.  The rest of the time, once I’ve blown off this steam, I’m Susie Sunshine and I mean it.  I’m the effing Pollyanna of the real world, even if in cyberspace I’m the ultimate pre-hallucinative Scrooge.

I hope I see each and every one of you walk into my store, and my other job, too.  I hope my earnest smile grinds your soul into dust and makes you feel like a shell of a person, questioning your existence in this work-a-day, dog-eat-dog world.  At the end of my smile, I know I’m changing all that to a better place.  Maybe even a place where my rants cease, and iRant becomes only iRave.  So close to the anniversary of 9/11, I’m glad to be the one smiling and making the solution, rather than contributing to the grey cloud stretching across the rest of our buoyant souls.  I’m not crushed yet, and I won’t be.  I’m the one you want fighting for this, so bring it, beyotch.  Bring your unsmiling self and your unprepared daughter.  I’ll school you both.

So during the time at my company pre-splutter boss, I had a good boss.  I had a great boss.  And that was coming after 2 other good bosses.  I guess I really started to take them all for granted.  So here’s to the final good boss, and here are some details for good measure:

Exhibit A: During a particularly heinous rollout, I call in and say I can’t come in, but note that I’m not sick.  He understands completely and encourages me to do something fun that day.

Exhibit B: Takes whole department for long lunches on the company, to celebrate… um… today’ll be our holiday party, ok everyone?

Exhibit C: Asks after my ailing mother and reminds me that if I need to take time off, do so.

Exhibit D: Scolds me for taking unpaid leave.  Tells me I should have talked to him first and we’d work out “comp time” or “something”.  No, that’s not sexual.  It’s him understanding that I’d worked many long and unpaid hours to that point. And being a freaking human.

Exhibit E: Gave me two great lines to live by: “It is what it is” and “it’s all play money anyway.”  The first line helps me accept pretty much anything that sucks and also steer conversations that would otherwise derail into “but why?” fests.  The second I realized was true back in college, and forgot along the way.  Money isn’t everything and is only useful while we’re here.  Use it.  Enjoy it with family and friends.  I never regretted spending money on travel, my big ticket item.  I never will regret it.  I had forgotten that somewhere and he reminded me.

Exhibit F: Is still in touch and genuinely cares.  I’m not his employee anymore.  He doesn’t have to encourage me to get a better product out of me.  Turns out, all that encouragement and support back then was just him being him.  Good stuff.