Holidays and How I Love They're Over

I don't necessarily MIND the holidays. In fact, I think they're a generally good idea. If you remove the rampant commercialism and the holier than thou religious centrism (along with all the ridiculous "Holiday" vs "Christmas" debate) it's a good idea. Once a year, why don't we put all our normal bull#$%^ aside and just be nice to each other for a change? I actually like doing nice things for people, especially the people I care about. I don't always have the sense to get my head out of my own ass all the time, but a nice wreath reminds me to buy that book I know my dad's got his eye on.

It's the shopping I can't stand. The parking, the bumping into people, the clawing for the last item on the shelf, these things make me murderous relatively quickly. I try to do as much as I can online, but this year even THAT managed to piss me off. A major bookseller who isn't Amazon.com has earned my eternal wrath at their stupidity. While I don't hate the U.S. Postal Service, I hate the other people who use them. Generally I like to buy myself a little something as I go along, reward myself for engaging the hordes. Now that it's all over, I can relax.

There is one story that I just had to write down, though. This one's for the books. My family is relatively scattered this year. My parents are at my older sister's place in CA this year. My younger sister was hosting her fiancee's family for Christmas. I opted to spend the morning with my wonderful grandparents who continue to amaze me. I know I won't have half that energy at half their age. For the afternoon I would go to my sister's, I haven't met this group of people that are going to be family soon, and what better time than Christmas?

This is where it gets good.

I get to the house, walk in the side door heading towards the kitchen. Directly in front of me is a crate.

In the crate is a duck.

Yep, a duck. A big white duck that looks ready to sell me insurance. Staring at me. I stopped, cause I was stuck. I was stuck because exactly one thousand and three increasingly hilarious things to say popped into my mind all at once and I realized I could say exactly none of them because there was a house full of people who might be very attached to this duck.

So we looked at each other. It was then I noticed a woman kneeling next to the duck and staring at me as if the sight of a new person in the house was stranger than, say, a duck hanging out in a kitchen. Turns out it's her duck. See, she's something of a bird lady. Bunch of parrots, cockatoos and the like. And, of course, the duck.

She was an absolutely delightful woman and completely understood my duck consternation. The rest of the family was very nice and I had a great time meeting them all.

But every time I turn around, there's the duck, staring at me as if to say, "Well, used to me now?"

From what I learned ducks make very good pets. They have great personalities and don't chew the furniture. this duck also had a jacket. It was actually a dog's jacket witht the sleeves sewn in. To me it looked like a smoking jacket. All it needed was a long stem pipe, a wing-backed chair, and a British accent.

I know this had nothing to do with acting, but I have to remember this shit.