Notes in the key of C

    Those of us who have an aquarium in their home will testify that there’s something soothing and relaxing about having watching fish swim.  I guess it’s a kind of subliminal experience where we become the fishes that we are watching.  What a life!  Swim back and forth from end to end, and eat twice a day.  No worries, no responsibilities.  But the catch is…..ya gotta keep swimming, twenty four hours a day, seven days a week, three hundred and sixty five days a year non-stop.  Any way you look at it, that’s a helluva lot of swimming.  Stop and you fall over on one side and risk being ridiculed by all the other fishes.  Life in a 55-gallon world may not be as rosy as it seems.  Big fish chases little fish and if little fish swims just a little bit slower that big fish, little fish ends up in big fish. And if THAT wasn’t bad enough, a fish gets lunch and dinner served in the same water it relieves itself in.  How nasty is that!!  And yet when the food is dropped in twice a day, it’s feeding frenzy time.  By the way they attack that garlic-flavored veggie flake, you’d think it was a prime rib steak and a baked potato.  They can’t get enough of it.

     For all the enjoyment that comes from having an aquarium, one never really bonds with fish.  It’s not quite like having a cat that purrs and curls up in your lap or a dog that wags his tail, listens to your every complaint and doesn’t expect much more than food and water,  a little attention and an ocassional walk around the neighborhood.  Fishes swim around until they get tired, fall over dead and end up flushed down the toilet.  It’s a boring life with an unceremonial ending.

     Well, here we are, slipping and sliding in a winter wonderland.  The winter season has not officially begun, but we’re at the doorstep of December so I suppose  I should have expected this kind of weather.  Yesterday’s rain turned into snow last night and this morning what has accumulated on the ground covers a slick layer of ice.  Some of the unfortunate fools that still have yet to learn to adjust their driving habits to the changes in the weather have since guided their vehicles off the roads, into light poles and ditches all around town and the kids are all enjoying an extra day away from classes.

     But me??…..I’m whining and complaining to whoever is or seems to be listening.  I don’t like it, never liked it and I guess I should just pack up, sell the house and get the heck out of town.  Phoenix, Arizona or San Antonio, Texas or Honolulu, Hawaii,  three locales that have always been attractive to me are looking a whole lot better right now.  I bet there’s no one there scraping an inch of ice off their windshields today or slippin’, sliding and busting their butts on slick sidewalks, either.  No way.  Snow and ice are the furthest things from their minds.  Looking out the window, I can see that the wind-driven sleet that stung my face this morning has been replaced by snowfall.  Oh, boy!  Tomorrow should be twice as much fun!

     Usually, the day after Thanksgiving is just another work day for me but this year, thanks to a different place of employment and the good grace of the Powers-that-be, I got Thursday and Friday off.  Whoooohoooooooooo!  You know what THAT means!!!???  First, closely scrutinizing all the ads in yesterday’s paper and then, forming a rough game plan of when to get up and which store to hit first, based on the proximity to the house and which ones opened the earliest. Some stores even open ON Thanksgiving day.  How desperate for the consumer dollar can you get??? 

     Friday morning comes and I’m up “before the chickens” and the family, including those visiting from “out-of-town”.  With the usual three eggs poaching, wheat bread toasting and coffee brewing, I hit the shower. (fast forward>>>>>>>twenty minutes) and I’m backing the Jeep out of the garage and headed down the road to Target.  I swear that at least half of these people must have camped out in the parking lot last night because it was already full by the time I pulled in.  Walk through the front entrance of the store and it looked like a wall-to-wall feeding frenzy, shopping carts being manuevered like little race cars up, down and between the aisles, most of them loaded with clothes, toys, and other stuff, much of which will end up coming back after Christmas.  Long lines trailed from every cash register, Visa and Mastercards appeared and disappeared from and back into wallets and purses and after about twenty minutes, claustrophobia was kicking in and I got the heck out of there.  I should have turned towards home right there and then but Nooooooooooooo……..not THIS glutton for punishment! After a quick stop at Starbuck’s, I headed for the mall for more of the same scenario.  So THIS is what I’ve been missing all these past years when I had to work on the day after Thanksgiving.  It’s the official first day of the shopping season when common sense goes out the window and consumer debt explodes through the ceiling and up, up and away into the wild blue yonder. I lasted long enough to go through one store and then, out the door.  No shopping stamina today, I guess. Oh, well….tomorrow’s another day with Sunday to follow.  Two more days to fight the crowds and try to get more shopping done before it’s back to work on Monday.