It's Christmas Time in the City... Aaaaahhhhhhh....Nooooooooooo!!

It's October, right? Not even Halloween yet. In fact it is twenty days until Halloween, so I can see that people have put up Halloween decorations and that there are pumpkins everywhere. I have no problem with that. I assume it's just a matter of time before I see a turkey surrounded by various gourds and fall leaves. But could you all please stop with the goddamned Christmas crap? I already have Mark asking for a new mixer for Christmas. He has a very nice, and expensive, KitchenAid mixer right now that has some of its attachments still in the box. It isn't that he doesn't like the KitchenAid mixer that he has, it's just that it isn't the right color. He is not getting a new KitchenAid mixer, at least not from me. But he is not the worst offender when it comes to bringing Christmas around too early. It's not Target either, nor Home Depot, nor a few toy companies advertising on television. No, the worst offender lives right down the street from me. We were in the car the other night and as we were turning the corner my friend Dennis says, "Is that a Christmas Tree?"

"Where?"

"Right up there, on the second floor."

Dennis points up to a building across the street and I look up. Sure enough, a Christmas Tree. A goddamned Christmas Tree, lit up, decorated, and right in the front window. Probably the same people who start blowing up firecrackers on June First.