Category: Humor

The Perils Of Christmas

christmas

The War on Christmas is over, and only nitwits and sophomores are still proclaiming that “Happy Holidays” is the one true path to enlightenment.  That’s the good news.  The bad news is, unfortunately, even though it serves no purpose, the silliness surrounding the biggest celebration on the Christian calendar continues.  I guess there’s just something about “Peace on Earth” that brings out every disaffected dolt with a grudge and an Internet connection.  However, take heart!  Here are a few helpful hints to avoid the perils of a contemporary Christmas.

The Tree – There’s always somebody who’s going to point out that Christmas trees are actually pagan symbols and then literally bathe in the suggested religious hypocrisy.  The best retort is, “Yes, that’s true.  In fact, it was sexually repressed, anal retentive Puritans who banned Christmas trees for that very reason.”  (Pause – 1, 2, 3)  “By the way, which kind are you?”

The Songs – They’ve already banned “Baby, It’s Cold Outside” so can “don we now our gay apparel” and “folks dressed up like Eskimos” be far behind?  Even “Rudolph, the Red-Nosed Reindeer” is under suspicion … bullying!  After all, when “all of the other reindeer used to laugh and call him names” Rudolph didn’t contact an authority figure (i.e. Santa Claus) to complain.  The best thing to do is stick to “Feliz Navidad” by Jose Feliciano.  It’ll drive you stark raving mad, but it ticks all the boxes.

Mistletoe – Not a good idea.

Office Parties – A grand tradition of good cheer and camaraderie that has fallen on hard times.  These days, nobody’s willing to chance waking up the morning after with a screaming hangover and a retroactive lawsuit.  So be it.  However, there’s no need to cancel this year’s festivities: simply segregate the party by gender — like they do in Muslim countries.

The Presents – Commercialism has always been the battle cry of those pompous asses who don’t understand Christmas in the first place.  However, this one is easy.  All you have to do is buy presents that nobody’s ever heard of.  Things like Fair Trade/handmade Ecuadorian shoelaces, or a Nigerian nose flute or a Community College course in roof thatching.  And what child wouldn’t be overjoyed to discover a bundle of organic asparagus in her stocking?

Santa Claus – This is a bad one.  Not only is Santa clearly running a sweatshop where a beleaguered minority (the elves) are forced to work long hours in less than ideal conditions, but there’s also the question of Mrs. Claus – a women so oppressed she doesn’t even have a first name!  Plus, there’s the bullying issue (covered in #2) the obesity issue, the trust issue, the judgemental issue and nobody really knows how big a carbon footprint flying reindeer leave.  This is a minefield, and the only way out of it is to tell your kids Santa Claus DOESN’T bring presents – Amazon does.  Problem solved.

But the very best way to avoid the perils of a contemporary Christmas is simply to keep Christmas in your own way and don’t sweat the mean- spirited morons who want to ruin it.

3 Dangerous Lies

crossed-fingers

We all lie: it’s built into our psyche.  I’m pretty sure that somewhere back in caveman days, somebody looked around and said, “Does this sabretooth pelt make me look fat?”  And her mate grunted the equivalent of, “No, darling!  It’s perfect.”  Thus our species continued populating the Earth.  Personally, I think lying is an essential part of civilization.  It gets us through social situations, keeps our friends and enemies in line and helps us not look like jerks – most of the time.  Plus, in general, lying is no big deal.  The rewards are large and the consequences quite small.  However, sometimes lies can be dangerous.  These are the lies we tell ourselves.  Here are just three examples.

1 – Remember, back in school when Brittany, Class President, hooked you into helping with the Annual Charity Drive because “It’ll be fun!”  And remember how is wasn’t because, while she and her friends were up at the dance, “collecting” non-perishable food items, you spent the evening down in the school basement, working your ass off, sorting cans of tuna and packages of macaroni.  Remember that?  So how come you’re phoning everybody in the family (on both sides) and saying, “We’re doing Christmas at our house this year.  C’mon over for dinner.  It’ll be fun!”

2 — Normally, this lie comes right after some celebrity TV know-it-all has created a beautiful gingerbread sculpture shaped like the British House of Parliament.  You watched them fashion this marvel — from finding fresh ginger at the local farmer’s market to carving out the wooden molds on a lathe.  They’ve spun sugar to a transparent sheen for the windows and even installed battery-operated lights – all in less than 30 minutes!  So, you say to yourself, “That looks easy” and go out a buy a Gingerbread House kit from the grocery store.  Two weekends and three Gingerbread House kits later, your own mother won’t speak to you, the kids have filed a restraining order and whatever’s left of the gingerbread mess is sitting in the corner – where you threw it.

3 — Once again, this lie started in school.  Your term project was due at the end of the semester, and that was three months away.  Three months!  That’s a lifetime when you’re a teenager.  So, you decided to do a kick-ass/best ever treatise on the Pre-Cambrian Shield – complete with rock samples, charts, hand-drawn illustrations and a working model of a Canadian glacier because, you say to yourself, “I’ve got plenty of time.”  And you keep saying that for the next 2 months and 27 days while your project slowly melts away like that glacier you’re never going to build.  Finally, you end up with 10 pages (double-spaced) that you borrowed from an encyclopedia (no Wikipedia in those days) a Xeroxed copy of an aerial photograph of Ontario and couple of stones from your garden . . . .

Well, folks!  Today is the 4th of December, and Christmas is exactly three weeks away.  Just sayin’!

 

Jobs In The 21st Century

jobs

Like the elves of Middle Earth, jobs are leaving these shores and they’re not coming back.  These days, if you are a travel agent, cashier, bank teller, journalist, or in any one of the other 1,001 person-to-person professions of the 20th century – you’d better start looking over your shoulder.  In the next decade, your paycheque is going to go the way of the dinosaur.  Quite frankly, blacksmiths will have better employment opportunities than you will.  Luckily, however, economics is a survival of the fittest science, and it’s already creating a shedload of new careers.  Here’s just a small sampling of the new jobs being created in the 21st century.  The crazy thing is – for the most part — these are real.

Harassment Officer –This is the only job in history that’s totally dependent on the employee NOT doing the job.  Think about it!  If a Harassment Officer actually puts a stop to harassment in the workplace, they’re out of a job.

Social Media Consultant – Apparently, there are still people on this planet who don’t know how Facebook, Instagram and Twitter work.

Millennial Generation Expert – Yes, companies hire people to try and figure out what makes their younger employees tick.  My best guess is they wander around the office telling everybody under 30 they’re “awesome” and then, once a week, they give out trophies.

Personal Shopper – This job has been around for a while, but it still amazes me that some people hire people to buy presents for the friends and relatives they can’t be bothered going to Walmart for.

Bikini Waxer – Back in the day, personal grooming was – uh – personal. Now we get professionals in on the plot.  My question is how do these people learn their trade?  Where are the schools?

Cloud Services Specialist – I have no idea what the hell these people do.

Activist – These are the people who make a career out of being pissed off.

Grant Writer – These are the people who convince rich people to give them money to pay the people who’ve made a career out of being pissed off.

Uber Driver – Simplest job in the world.  All you have to do is go to Uber.com and sign up.  According to one person I talked to, Uber doesn’t even check to see if you actually have a car.

Influencer – We used to call these people shills. They worked carnivals and sideshows, trying to entice the local folk into spending their money on rigged games and cheap gadgets.  These days, they prowl the Internet and confine their activities to promoting perfumes and overpriced designer clothes.

Ethical Sourcing Officer – These are the people who make sure the Asian sweatshops aren’t beating the children who make those overpriced designer clothes.

Jean Ripper – I don’t know whether this is a real job or not, but somebody’s got to be ripping those overpriced designer jeans.

But my two favourites are:

Content Creator – These are the people who have YouTube channels, podcasts and — the grandmother of them all — blogs.  Yep, people actually get paid for wasting your time.

Content Reader – These are people who spend their days checking the contents of YouTube channels, podcasts and — the grandmother of them all — blogs.  Yep, people actually get paid for wasting their own time.