I went out for my brief Christmas Shop today.

With @donnadavisart in the UK for the season and my mother and her parasite boyfriend away in Florida, I've been free to indulge my inner grinch. (Outside of the retail job, of course.) The best thing is, there's no one around to be brought down by my cranky, cadaverous whingeing, except for the internet, who is free to pass by and ignore it.

(But do skip down to the pictures first. I've done my best to make them mildly amusing.)

Christmas is a constellation of all the stuff that makes me anxious and uncomfortable.

Besides the basic exploitative consumerist advertising angle, there's the psychological armor you have to put on around family, the guilt associated with eating, neuroses about spending money, the TREMENDOUS guilt that comes with receiving gifts and wondering if what you offer is perceived as equal value, and the question of whether this is the year all those simmering resentments will erupt into physical blows.

If the alcohol helps you to survive all that, you arrive at the dreadful cleanup and the clutter, and you can work out where to store your new stuff and how long you're obligated to keep it.

What I really want for Christmas is for someone to help me haul another load of my ancestor's garbage to the dump. And if they could take some of my psychological baggage with it too, that'd be great.

I understand that most people take Joy from Christmas. I really do. That's why I smile in public and say "Merry Christmas" whenever it seems appropriate. People just enjoy the holidays, and I'm sure they'd still enjoy them if it weren't for the shopping and the catchy jingles and the overeating too.

There are people who enjoy Anal Sex, too.

And that's what Christmas is to me. It's something that lots of people take pleasure from, which, for whatever twisted psychological reasons of my own, I can't find anything but greasy and kind of disturbing.

I'm not gonna hate on bummers because they get off on their own traditions.

The big difference, though, is anal sex goes on in private. While Christmas happens everywhere. There's no avoiding it.

The wife absolutely loves it, for one. So usually I make an attempt to clench up and enjoy it, or rather relax and enjoy it, and I'm grateful for the good Christmas memories we have. Especially with her side of the family - they don't have the hang-ups mine does.

I have had a few smiles this season, though.

And some of them wouldn't have happened if I hadn't gone out for my brief Christmas shop, today. I needed to get something for my boss, who has been very kind to me. He's the classic "man who has everything," though, so I headed to a flea market to find something that could make up in uniqueness what it lacked in cost.

I was left with several questions.

Like, what's going on with this book?

A 100 page exercise workbook for high schoolers on how to use the telephone book. With a gorilla on a car.

(I didn't buy it, of course. I don't need kitsch cluttering up my house. But I almost wish that I had.)

Is this really the best way to carry an iPad around the city?

He had it tucked right into his iPants.

This is precisely why I don't handle someone else's touchscreen.

Are these dolls racist?

Which ones? Let me know in the comments, please!

Why does the Paymaster check writing machine have the option of printing the Star of David in the place of a number?

I mean, I don't want to suggest there's a cabal of Jewish bankers tampering with our office equipment, but...

... the signs are right there. (Just kidding about the cabal of course, guys. But - anyone know why the stars?)

Does the world really need more stuff?

Especially when it already has this much stuff in it?

A place like this makes me feel queasy when I think about my old dream of writing books. This makes publishing a book feel like littering.

Do we really need Christmas lights when the world is already full of lights?

This, to me, is as exciting as any Christmas tree. And as an added bonus, I don't have to sweep up the needles.

Remember when an image like this counted as pornography?

Now it doesn't even merit an NSFW tag. I wonder if she does Christmas?

Finally - what is inedible Tallow?

How is it different from edible tallow? Who eats tallow, anyway?

And what went wrong with this tank, which clearly once carried edible tallow, to cause it to be down-graded to the transportation of inedible tallow by the introduction of two stenciled letters in a different font?

I say - put a fruitcake in it and push it off a cliff!

Merry Christmas, everyone!

I hope you have the best time in the world. I really do mean that.

Just, you know, keep it behind closed doors.

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