First of all a big, big shout-out to Dani B., who was able to answer my burning question about why the doors on both sides of red line trains don’t open simultaneously at Park. And furthermore was able to do so without having to say something like, “but why do you care?” I just do.
The after the holidays funk has fallen like a hard fog on our fair burg. Have you noticed how down in the mouth everybody is out on the streets? It’s because everybody knows there’s no goodies for–what?–another four months, or something. I mean, when’s the next big holiday when you can go ape-shit at the mall and gorge yourself till you puke? (It’s just an observation, not a judgment, by the way. Don’t be so touchy!)
I’ve always thought it was better to have lots of little gifts all throughout the year than to blow your load at Christmas. But when you have kids you have to try to contain their bottomless greed and corral their endless wants. Again, an observation, not a judgment. Children have no choice but to be greedy. It’s how they survive. At least the ones who were the most greedy and cunning were the ones to survive in the ancestral environment, where resources were scarce and competition for them fierce. Every morsel that your little sister manages to get mom and dad to give her is a morsel stolen right out of your mouth. You’ve got to be cuter, smarter, faster, more brutal, or just pitch a fit whenever you don’t get what you want. That’s why they call it survival of the fittest, after all. Greed got us to where we are today, evolutionarily speaking.
But now, you know, you’re already in hock up to your eyeballs, and you dug yourself a little deeper in the hole, and all that crap you bought your kids, they’re over it. Onto the next new thing. Daddy, mommy, more! More! MOOOORRRRE!
You just have to look them square in their greedy little gimlet eyes and say, but Veruca, honey, there is NO MORE. Ah, but they know better. There is always more. That’s the one thing that there has to be!
But not until Easter, honey. Then we’ll buy you a stuffed bunny as big as you are and you can gorge on marshmallow chocolates until you spew! Now’s time to explain to them that it’s just like director Ang Lee said about his gay cowboy movie in a recent interview: “sadness lasts longer than happiness.” It’s best children learn that at an early age. It only takes a few minutes to scarf down ten lbs of chocolate bunnies, but the tummy ache will last you into next week, and then when finally you wake up without one, your siblings will have stolen all your candies, and there will be nothing left. But look on the bright side: Ol’ Whatsisface is Risen!
Yes, that old post-holiday funk. I’m immune, because I started taking my Saint John’s wort a month before the holidays, so I would be prepared. Nothing can touch me. But for those of you who don’t have any pills to pop, thank goodness there are so many helpful ads up all over the T! Feeling down in the dumps? Well, remember: “Philosophy works.” I love those ads. I was riding the T home one night last week, after a few too many pints, and feeling as lugubrious as I can nowadays, which isn’t really very, but I still have empathy. So it was after ten and everyone was kind of glaring into the middle distance. My eyes fell on that ad: “Who am I? What am I doing here? What am I meant to be doing? How can I be happy?” The School of Practical Philosophy will show you how! (Cults are the best way, I’ve found.)
If you’re too busy paying off your Christmas debt to join a cult, then you’ll just have to hunker down. Spring is only four or five months away!
Another riddle for Dani B. or anyone out there with special insight: you know those signs on the sliding doors of T cars that say “These doors do not reopen automatically”? What exactly are they implying with that?