Susan's Scribblings the Blog

Nothing like a bad week to make one miserable.  Bad weeks make you appreciate the ones in which you come out with money in your pocket and no need for medical care.  I have been trying hard to come down with something, and running with a sleep deficit doesn’t help matters.

Traffic was unusually hectic, with drivers disregarding speed limits and getting into accidents by incredible numbers.  The local newscasters have had a field day with snarls and gridlocks all over, and I was stuck in quite a few of them.

This week in particular, I found myself driving into the rush hour traffic, as I went to a different office than usual.  This required going south to north in the morning, and north to south in the evening.  Everybody seems to go in these directions, and I have always been glad to have a job which normally sends me the other way and out of the grip of the brake-tapping tango that normally fills the opposing lanes when I’m coming and going.  Traffic jams are nerve-wracking when you have someplace to go.

Then I got delayed in Friday traffic when a jam took place at my usual exit.  The cars backed up for five miles.  When I got to the exit, there was nothing to indicate an accident, only cones and flashing lights.  It still took me an extra half hour to get home, on a night when I really wanted to be on time, because I had something to do.

Bad traffic days make one want to not have something to do after work.  There will always come a time when you will be late, and people don’t like to be late.  That is when they speed up and cause accidents which make other people late.

Maybe it happens because everybody seems to get out of work at 4:00 or 5:00.  Maybe people just don’t get the concept of driving safely and taking care of their vehicles.

Griping about it doesn’t help make the bad week go away.  All I can do is wait for the next one to be better.

At least I can look forward to turkey this Thursday.

I was in the mall with a friend and saw Santa had just arrived that day.  We just finished a late Halloween, and already the jolly old man is taking children’s early toy orders.

This whole thing has gone a bit too far.

Does anybody remember Hess’ department store, based in Allentown, PA?  Each year, usually after Thanksgiving, a local network would air a special featuring the store’s animatronic holiday figures.  It was something to look forward to.  All the major department stores opened up a holiday window the day after Thanksgiving.  Black Friday meant something back then.

Hess’ was one of the early victims of department store closures.  Back then, probably nobody would have predicted that such places would go out of business like they have in the past twenty years.

Now department stores compete for which can open closest to the end of the turkey dinner, while the stuffed denizens of the family table have not succumbed to the effects of tryptophan.

The PA lottery is airing their holiday instant ticket commercials already, featuring a group a carolers doing a lottery themed rendition of “Twelve Days of Christmas”  (the lead singer has sung “Five Cash Five”–substituting for five gold rings–for about four years now, and the residual checks must be phenominal), and a man graciously giving tickets as gifts to the employees as a newsstand  (from which he might well purchase them daily anyway).

We see ads for the “Pre-Black Friday Sale,” and prices are low enough that one could refurbish an entire home with new stuff.

Of course, there are victims of Hurricane Sandy who need an entire new home, and even sales won’t help them recover in time for Christmas.

Some of the networks are already airing holiday themed specials.  Next will come the radio stations playing holiday music until January.  Christmas has become a calendar equivalent of a plague of locusts, which comes and ravages your life for what seems like forever, and for which you are grateful only when it is finally over.

Sure, businesses are desperate for end-of-year profits, and some people like to have a holiday that lasts forever, but the constant barrage so early in the season is just wrong.

Can’t we at least get to Thanksgiving week first?

The coast is due for a pounding from a hurricane.  I’ll be back after the dust has settled (or the water recedes).

I have already commented on the presidential debate and President Obama’s small flag pin.  The contender, Mitt Romney, had a larger lapel pin.  Well, the candidates for the number two position did the same thing.  Vice President Biden wore a small American flag lapel pin, while Paul Ryan had the large one.

What’s up with this?  I’m certainly not going to argue the issue of patriotism in relation to pin size, but was the choice part of the overall effort to steer public attention or opinion?  Don’t think that every aspect of the candidates’ outfits is not over-thought down to the last detail.  Somebody came up with the idea.  I’d like to know why.