Grandma Got Run Over By a Shopper

‘Tis the season of peace and joy, or at least that’s what we're told from childhood on. The truth is that anybody who has ever had to go in a store--for anything--between Thanksgiving and New Year's Day knows that people are generally not in a good mood. Drivers lose the ability to drive. Shoppers are rushed, rude, and exasperated. People in general are not at their best.

Why is this? The crazy pace of modern life is a big part of the problem. We are expected to do more, faster, than ever before. There is also more stress than ever before, which definitely contributes to the problem.

On the other hand, this rude attitude has been around for a long time. One of my first memories of this time of year is being knocked down by a woman and her shopping cart. She didn't even apologize. I suspect the exhaustive, crazy, overwhelming feel of this season is mostly caused by the pressure to have perfect holidays, combined with guilt if you don't spend a large amount of money on perfect gifts, food, decorations, and clothing.

In other words, the winter holiday season has been hijacked by retailers. The more the pressure to spend, spend, spend (even on Thanksgiving Day!), the more money the big corporations can make.

Now I have nothing against retailers making money, but my humble opinion is that things have gotten way out of hand. The answer? Beats me. I just hope there is one.

Have a wonderful holiday season,and please don't let it get to you. The important thing is family and friends. And enjoying yourself!

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Cheryel

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Here's to the Season

I’ve often been heard to say that I’d like to go into hibernation right after Halloween and wake up after the new year begins. But hey, if I’m going to do that, then maybe I could just sleep until the wind isn’t sending ice cubes down my back and I don’t have to worry about the pipes freezing. I love Fall. In fact, it’s my favorite time of year. Winter, on the other hand, let’s just say I’m not a big fan.

By far, the worst time of winter for me has always been holiday shopping. I hate it. Trying to fight through packed parking lots to get into packed stores to buy the perfect gift — you know, the one you can never find. And don’t get me started on the attitudes of the shoppers! Season of peace and goodwill my left foot (that just got stepped on, by the way).

I can actually trace my serious dislike of holiday shopping back to when I was about five or six and I was shopping with my mom. A small child wasn’t even noticed by the herds of shoppers. At one point I was knocked to the floor by a shopping cart, and the person behind it never even noticed what she’d done. Childhood trauma via shopping cart. Hmm, maybe I should start a support group.

But enough of the complaining. I actually want to say how much better shopping has been this year. I’d think it was my new meds, but other people have commented on the lack of cranky too. Maybe more people are shopping online, or maybe it’s the phase of the moon, or the alignment of the stars. Whatever the cause, I’m grateful. This year, I’m actually enjoying the season. Even if is cold.

Something else I’m enjoying is my family. My husband, my kids, my son-in-law, my grandkids, my mom and stepdad, my friend who’s closer than a sister. My two dachshunds. All the wonderful people, and dogs, in my world. It seemed much more fun this year to buy gifts for them. I enjoyed it more. Of course it didn’t hurt that I got a big hunk of things on the first shopping trip. Two stores, four gifts. Great way to start. Plus I found the perfect planner for myself. Hey, gotta stay organized.

However much you shop, for whatever holiday, here’s wishing you a wonderful, pleasant shopping season.

Oh, and happy whatever!

Cheryel
www.cheryelhutton.com

If Not Amazon, Then Where?

On Tuesday, Ember mentioned the #amazonfail debacle that occurred over the Easter weekend. (Link goes to the Dear Author ‘amazon’ tag, which lists all the articles they ran regarding the issue.)

Amazon had been stripping titles of their ranking according to metadata that often included the terms ‘gay & lesbian’ and ‘erotic.’ It wasn’t an across the board deranking, but it did affect nearly 58,000 titles. To this point, I still have no idea whether it was a software glitch, some French programmer with a language problem, or the work of an insidious hacker. Amazon is sure as heck not spilling the beans. The upshot was that authors of gay and lesbian literature, both fiction and non-fiction, as well as authors of heterosexual erotic fiction, had their titles virtually buried for at least two full days, if not longer.

One of the most telling things about the entire 48 hour orgy of idiocy – from my perspective, at least – was that Amazon decided that the authors who were targeted by this issue didn’t deserve a direct and sincere mea culpa. Yes, there was the “embarrassing and ham-fisted” statement, but it did skirt the whole issue of ghettoizing, however inadvertently, an already marginalized category of literature.

The upshot is that I don’t shop at Amazon anymore. I’ve never been comfortable with the way they do business. I don’t like the mega-corp model, even though I get the economics of them. Instead, I’m choosing to do my book-buying from other independent stores. My online shop of choice is Powells, a bricks and mortar store in Portland, OR that also has a pretty extensive online catalog. I’ve also looked into Alibris and Borders, B&N and Books*A*Million are also options. I understand that some UK buyers have moved to BookDepository, as well.

If you’ve recently made the decision to spend your book dollars elsewhere, what’s your shop of choice?

Whatta Rush!

Christmas is looming on the horizon waiting to swallow me whole. But even though I'm nowhere near ready for the big bad holiday monster, I'm not scared at all. Nope, I'm not gonna panic because I know that one of those wonderful alpha males I write about will save the day. He'll swing in on a vine made of tinsel wearing nothing but a pair of tastefully worn jeans. He'll come to my rescue and volunteer to do all that last minute shopping. And he'll do it with a sexy smile and a wink. Then, he'll give me an hour long foot massage. Oh yeah baby!

Yeah any minute now, it's gonna happen.

Where in the heck is he?

Okay, reality check. There's really no hyped up hottie coming to rescue me from retail hell. Nobody who'll come sliding in at the last minute bearing bags of toys for all the girls and boys. (Sorry Santa, you don't count) I'm not that lost in my own little fantasy world.

It's just me and my cute, quirky hubby against those who wish to sacrifice us upon the altar of capitilism. We'll arm ourselves with iced coffees knowing that if things get hairy at least we'll be highly caffeinated and can run away really fast. The credit cards will scream for mercy, however, we'll be firm and press onward fighting the good fight until good triumphs over evil once more in the quest for the perfect gifts for the ones we love! Or barring that, whatever's left after everything else has been picked over by the vultures also known as...

The Early Birds!

We don't like them, but we promise ourselves we'll be one of them next year. Yeah, we did say that last year, how'd you know?

Jenna

Tonight We Shop In HELL.. mart