The Dirty Truth Behind All the Glitter

Oh my god, it's almost over. And not a moment too soon. Dust bunnies have gathered under the Christmas tree because it's so damn hard for Rosie the Robot vacuum to get under there. The plants on the window sill behind the Christmas tree are dried up and dead because I couldn't get back there to water them. (They'd be dead anyway. I always forget to water plants in the house.) Mark has spent himself silly. Packages are still arriving and there is no more room in the house for another damn thing, and that includes the basement. Last night I unplugged the outdoor Christmas lights so they wouldn't come on again. I didn't take any outdoor decorations down out there, too cold. But I'm sick of seeing them, so I pulled the plug. Later today I will go down into the basement and bring up all the tubs and boxes so that Mark can put Christmas away for another eleven months. Luckily for me, he has a specific way of packing all that crap away. So all I have to do is schlep it up and down the stairs. So the holidays are over. I'm fatter, poorer, and I now have a house full of things that Mark gave me that I don't need. Around October I start dreading the upcoming December holidays, and by the first week of January I hate them. That includes my birthday. By this time next year I'll be seventy goddamned years old. I'm not ready.