Velociworld

CHRISTMAS BONUS

for the electric company from me again this year. It's not enough that I pull down the Christmas stuff on Thanksgiving Day so that we can be Merrily Fucking Festive by Friday. NOW The Bride wants this shit up the Wednesday before. I can't win. I did pull it all down today, including the nine foot tree. No, I don't buy a real tree, for the same reason I don't smoke cigars in bed after power drinking. I figure my insurance agent is already trickling his nuthuggers just looking at the Griswold electrical job I do on the outside of the house.

Given my druthers, I'd just make luminaria out of Foster's oil cans, line my driveway, and be done with it. Perhaps add a manger scene peopled with Barbies and GI Joes, with a Pikachu Baby Jesus. That kind of artistic license is not allowed at the Velocihovel, however.

I have to string 3.2 million lights all the way around my house, with animated reindeer in the front AND back yards. The ones in back I originally ordered for the front, but when they arrived they were too small. Looked like nasty little goats, and I didn't want the spirit of my dad getting into an argument with them and snuffing them, so they went in back, for the neighbors across the pond to loathe.

This task takes about 4 good hours, 6 if I crack a few beers first and manage not to slide off the roof. Then I get to go watch my electric meter spin like a slot machine in a Jasper County convenience store. These are icicle lights too, which means the statistical probability that one tiny bulb will burn out, shorting a six foot section of lights, is approximately twice a day.

The culprit bulb will ALWAYS be up near the peak of the roof, so I can climb up there in the dark with a baby Maglite clenched in my teeth, reading glasses perched on my nose, replacement bulbs wedged in my ears, Budweiser in my back pocket, and Fix It. If I can find it. After I've replaced it I'll put the ladder away, then see my cat, Curious Jerkoff, up on the roof. Rinse, repeat daily.

Damn, I love the Holidays.