Sunday, December 28, 2008

From Santa’s lips to your ears…… (so it's a little late)

(I wrote this entry on the way back from Kansas but never found enough time or wi-fi to be able to upload it so here it is as a post holiday note)

Sometime this week one of the Amazon employees said something to me that really made me stop and think. He made the comment that I was “playing Santa”, when I felt I was taking me an inordinately long period of time to find the correct title in one of the low bins. Playing Santa…yeah…cool…or as Linda said, at least being one of his elves for the last couple months…… Stuffing his sleigh with items for all the good little boys and girls.
OK, so based on the items I’ve been picking, there’s either a lot of “bad” kids out there or people just giving some quirky gifts. There was a lady on Dr. Phil the other day who takes great delight in buying weird gag gifts and giving them to her kids for Christmas to get a rise out of them. She would love some of these gifts. Last night I pulled a book that touted itself on the ultimate authority on farts….came complete with a little sound machine that must have simulated 9 or 10 different ones. I was so tempted to hit one of the buttons and ensure “that it worked properly” but had visions of it being really loud and of drawing a crowd to my aisle….Then there is the book on “How to shit in the Woods”….My favorite is the ever popular, “What’s your poo saying to you ? “ that I have picked many, many times. Frankly, if your poo is talking to you, you need to lay off the hard stuff. There is still the proverbial chunk of coal for the really bad kids…..but I’ve only pulled that once….these other titles far outnumber the old fashioned coal gift. Heard of the ‘Chicken Soup for the Soul” series….course you have. They have one for every profession or age group out there. Well, believe it or not there is another similar series ( a distant cousin to the first, I believe) that is called “Chicken Poop for the Soul”. Don’t know what enlightening and spiritual information this series has to share with its readers but you can get it at Amazon.
While we’re on the poop subject, a lot of the items I pull are “crap”. DVD’s of old movies that sucked when they first came out but are now touted as being “15th anniversary edition”…”Collector’s Edition”, etc. It was crap back then and unlike a good bottle of wine it didn’t get any better in 15 years. It’s still crap but people are spending money on them left and right. As my mom would say, “They have more money than brains.” What will be really depressing will be the news after Christmas of how much credit card debt increased over the holidays without people having the ability to pay for the items they bought. Crap bought with credit….a poor combination.
The other practical item for Christmas is underwear. I’ll tell you….I’ve seen more brands and styles of underwear and bras in the last three months than I’ve seen in my entire life. Some have really spiffy packaging, like Tommy Hilfiger, with zippered bags that they come in while others are in a little plastic bag. Some come on little hangars….never hung up my underwear in the closet so not sure what that is about. The thongs are always interesting…mens and womens….can fit a whole lot of them in a bin. Then some brands have catchy little slogans….like Ginches brand. Their slogan is “Wrap your inches in our Ginches”….catchy…some marketing person was sure on the ball with that one…Guess it sounded better than, “Nothing pinches like our Ginches…. But I noticed that on the little boy underwear, for this same company, that it didn’t have that slogan….just pictures of construction equipment. Hmmm……
That’s kind of a peripheral summary on some of the more interesting gifts us elves are packing in Santa’s sleigh. It’s up to you which list you wind up on…..

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