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Ahh, it's that time of the year again. Christmas cheer is in the air, or so it has seemed to be every time I've made a trip to the store since oh... about the middle of October. I used to think the day after Thanksgiving was jumping the gun, but retailers these days start running with the holiday season before the guy who fires the gun is even in the general vicinity of the field. Analysts predict if current trends continue, retailers will keep their Christmas goods out all year round by 2010, and I will be forced to plead insanity after I go on a riotous retail rampage in a piteous display of passionate protest. On the bright side, I guess those people who are too lazy to take their Christmas lights down after Christmas will look a little less lethargic. I love Christmas, and the holiday season in general, just not when it lasts nearly a quarter of the year. And not with all this babble about political correctness as if a Christmas Tree shouldn't be called a Christmas Tree. And as a responsible writer, I feel conscientiously inclined to confess I made up that bit about analysts. It sounded good so I rolled with it.
Speaking of shopping and rolling, I was st-rolling around at Fred Meyers yesterday and I stopped next to the bicycles to talk on the phone. I'm generally not coordinated enough to talk and walk at the same time. But there's a reason for everything, even my [lack of] coordination, and this was clearly my calling. "Save the Cheerleader, save the world." Very near by me, on my left side there was a little girl climbing onto a bike that was too big for her. I continued to talk on the phone, at this point I had not yet consciously acknowledged her presence. The bike being too large for her, the two begun a battle of balance which the young girl quickly lost. My far peripheral vision caught sight of her as she begun to topple over. Without shifting my gaze or focus, or even consciously recognizing the need for action, I extended my left arm and defeated gravity's will. In one swift motion I became a young girl's hero, earned the bicycle's enmity, and reaffirmed the ever-present need for me to give myself a pat on the back. I was unable to realize this necessity, as it seems both hands are already everlastingly engaged in doing just that. They can't keep up with demand.
Okay, so I didn't save the world, not even a lousy cheerleader (I just have that stupid NBC commercial stuck in my head, though I seldom watch TV), but I saved a six year old kid from a bruise or two. That's something. Anyhow, when I'm standing around and something is thrown at me and you wouldn't expect me to notice, somehow I spring into action and catch it. People are always wowed by it, so I let it get to my head. I am pretty amazing. Then someone throws something while standing right in front of me and it pegs me right in the eye. I guess you could say that gets to my head too, in a far more infuriating fashion. I am pretty pathetic.
It's time for a change of pace. An important one at that. I got another ticket last night. Yeah. Laugh it up. The girl who thought she was too witty, pretty and, only as a last resort, pitiable, to ever get a ticket, got ticketed. But don't let that cover by The Clash jump to mind just yet, because I fought the law, and the law didn't won. I mean win. At least not the first time. This time around I got ticketed for running a red light. All is not as it seems however, for I sat at this light for three cycles. Traffic going North, West, and South all kept moving, but the light for traffic going East never changed. Never. Since there weren't very many cars around anyway, I finally said forget this and I went through the light. Surprise, a cop car rolled around the corner. Smells like entrapment to me. I'm going back to that traffic light tonight with a camera and I'll record it staying red for five minutes straight. I'll bring it to court and I'll win again. The first ticket I got, which I fought successfully, thank you very much, was for going eight miles per hour over the speed limit. I was going as fast as all the other cars. Ridiculous. I think the police are conspiring against me. "Lets get the girl who thinks she'll never get a ticket." They had better bring it, because sugar, we're going down swingin '. I don't know who 'we' could refer to, I guess only I am going down swinging. Maybe 'we' could refer me and my Elle, though she already went down long ago. Her auto insurance on the other hand, well that rocketed off in the opposite direction.
Anyway, the police should have better things to do around here than sit at a traffic light that never turns green and wait for unsuspecting drivers to run through it out of sheer vexation. I mean seriously, I live in the ghetto of Portland. No, Portland doesn't really have a ghetto, but if it did, my neighborhood would be it. There's got to be more important things for them to do. I remember one day a month or so ago on another routine trip to the supermarket. As I was walking into the store behind a family of four, the family's father got into a verbal fight with a bum. The mother and the children were all crying for their father to stop, fearful that he'd get decked by a disheveled derelict who couldn't have weighed more than I do. I don't know if it got physical because I just shrugged it off and went into the store. About 15 minutes later on the way back out there were two men in a fist fight. The family of four came out of the store and again the dad was getting involved, this time trying to break things up. Things calmed down and as he returned to his family a little police chase tore straight through the parking lot. Sirens blazing and everything. The mom exclaimed, "Lets get out of here, this place is crazy!" She took ahold of her children's hands, and the four of them fled with haste, climbing into a glossily painted minivan and driving away in a hurry. They were probably heading off to their perfect home in the perfect sort of neighborhood I've only read about in magazines; where the police really don't have anything better to do than ticket people who run through malfunctioning traffic lights and crime is something you only see on TV.
I shrugged it all off and casually walked back to my car. It was just another day in the ghetto of Portland. I've been so desensitized this stuff doesn't phase me any more. It probably should, but it doesn't. Oh my gosh, I'm eating these chocolate truffles and they are so good. I'm going to go find more of them. You'll have to excuse me. It's been something like ten months since I wrote one of these rambles, but there you have it. I've written this throughout the day amid a myriad of real work so I apologize if its not up to snuff. But then, I've generally been lacking in the inspiration department, hence having gone such a long stretch of time since attempting to write in a style I once took for granted as tried and true. This one wasn't so bad though, was it? Don't answer that question, it's rhetorical. Unless of course, you're prepared to praise me, if this is the case, feel free! Until next time kids, please remember, if you get stuck at a light that never turns green, you should probably just make a right-hand turn.
7:58 AM
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