Thanksgiving is on the horizon, and you know what that means, xmas, like the grim reaper, is lurking in the wings, oh joy! The season of forced bonhomie, tacky decorations and an endless loop of holiday songs in every store. It’s enough to make you puke. I don’t understand people who enjoy this time of year, it’s like being in a north korean prison cell with loud rap music piped in 24 hours a day. Fortunately, this year the OB&C and I are flying solo, so screw the tree, screw any decorations, I bought a wreath made of barbed wire for the door to give visitors advance knowledge of the vibe inside. We were hoping that our new great grandbaby, henri-henri and Bandoleira-Saturnalia our grand daughter along with her partner Adamame would be with us, which almost made me look forward to it, but alas she’s worried that she cannot manage the amount of gear required by babies these days and also about his being around the pond scum that clogs airplanes and airports.
Hell when I had her mother, albatross, we didn’t have car seats, I just wedged her on the floor of the passenger side of our beetle on a towel or something. Astronaut car seats, puhlease. We didn’t even wear seat belts. When we had her brother knut, we carried him around in a carrier kind of basinet thing to fly and stuffed a six pack of cold beer underneath the little mattress. It’s a miracle he didn’t catch pneumonia. Life’s hard kid, get used to it. As for baby carriages, we had something made of polyester webbing that folded up like an umbrella, it weighed about a pound. No neck support or protective padding, if the kid started to skid sideways and looked like he might break loose we just shoved him back upright and kept on trucking.
Parents these days spend a ridiculous amount of money on absurd expensive equipment that they neither need nor will ever use, or even worse, extort money from their friends and relatives, which I think is shameless. The OB&C’s nephew Jank and his broodmare wife Jo Jo Rabbit, had a baby shower hosted by a friend of the OB&C’s brother Jank sr. He assembled all of his wealthy geriatric friends and the shakedown began. First off, the expectant parents had helpfully set up a registry of what they wanted. A baby carriage, the Cybex La Pariesienne clocking in at $3250 for the cheap skates, up to the Silver Cross Balmoral Pram, for the royal wee thing for $8000. Our first car didn’t cost that much. Then there were the basinets, the Happiest baby SNOO sleeper. with the added feature of rocking the kid so the punch drunk parents don’t have to, for $1695. And on it went. The OB&C and I picked up a silver baby cup on the way to the hustle, but it didn’t even elicit a reaction from the parents and for all I know got tossed with the trash. I had given Jank Jr’s mother, Marshmellow a note pad and pen and, puzzled, she asked me why. I said to keep track of what gifts were received from whom so Jank Jr and JoJo Rabbit could write thank you notes. She looked at me like I had just handed her a molotov cocktail, she had no idea what I was talking about. Hence no thank you notes were written or received, except perhaps for the strivers who ponied up for one of the big ticket items.
In a previous post of things I hate, I failed to mention people who don’t write thank you notes. And baby showers.
Fortunately Adamame, henri-henri’s father, seems to have plenty of dough-re-me so we were not hit up for anything. I did send a crocheted fishing hat which I thought was cute. But apparently neglected to include the rest of the outfit, crocheted waders and a fly fishing vest. But hang on sweetie, Santa’s on his way!!
my jaundiced eye 