My Thanksgiving, or why I will not get to see my family this year.

So, Its the holiday season again.

Woo.

I mean it, I really do. Its the time when I can go and see all my busy, old, far away relatives and catch up with their lives. I can get some fond memories of them while they are still around, and enjoy some seasonal food while it is fresh, and nostalgic.

Wait, I work in retail.

Nevermind.

The retail store I work at is only closed 2 days a year, Christmas and Thanksgiving. It closes then so that its employees can go get some time with their families. But that rings just a little hollow when because of the days immediately after each one. I cannot go see my old, or far away relatives. I mean, its not like my grandparents are old or anything, I mean they're supposed to live forever right? Its not like people in their eighties are just dying off. Its not like people who are old and or fraile have a higher mortality rate in the winter because of the cold or anything.

But at least I can go see my parents this year, and go get some good food and entertainment before I work through 12 hours of angry guests. Wait, some of them are headed out to see the family thats far away, so I guess I can only see one small chunk of my family this year...

again.

Wait, every major retail chain this year has announced that they will be opening their doors at 8 pm Thanksgiving night. So, it looks like I now get to run a shift from late Thanksgiving to early Black Friday.

So, in order to survive this shift, I will need to sleep while the family who is close enough to me for me to visit them is eating.

So my thanksgiving this year:

• Cannot see my aging grandparents who are too far away.
• Cannot see my sisters or their families, who are living close to the above.
• My dad is almost assuredly going out to see every one above, which leaves me out again.
• I have to sleep through the meal my mom is making this year, so I can:
• Say up over night and deal with customers who will be upset because we ran out of deal x
• or want us to honor coupon y, even though it doesn’t apply to what they want.
• or who are mad at me personally, that I made them get up and shop at the ridiculous hour of 11:45 PM on Thanksgiving evening.

Because I get a choice in all of those options.

Its true, I do. I can also chose to tell my boss “I quit” go and become a hobo. Its not like I need my pay to make ends meet. Or to feed myself or my wife. or for rent so I can stay warm and dry through the winter season.

Or I can work when I’m told too.

The simple fact is:

Companies know that they can open the doors whenever with an amazing sale to get more customers.

Customers know that Companies are going to put out the best sales on Black Weekend.

This vicious cycle of malignant consumerism has pushed my thanksgiving from a holiday where I get to see my family like my employer's “intended” by not being open that day. To a holiday where I have to not see anyone I really care about because I have to sleep through it. So I can work .

Some might ask, What about Labor Day? Well obviously leading question aside, it’s Monday. Really, its the day I go to work and do labor. I know it was intended to be a day where laborers get the day off, but I have somehow always been doing labor on labor day. Weird huh?

Now, before this grows much longer, Here’s the point.

Don’t feel sad about missing me. When you're passing the rolls around the table, eat one for me. I miss my family so much, but there’s really nothing I can do to see them right now. I know that they are missing me, and I am always welcome. But I need to keep working to survive, so its off to work I go. Until the vicious circle ends however, this is the way it will be.

Serves me right!

Here I am. I just had the most awesome Idea for writing an RGP. System, Universe, everything.

All I need now is free time.

Blasted free time.

I blame the Androids

I'm sitting here at work, thinking of how I want to start this off. My friend gave me a good idea with which I will follow. If only I had a freaken idea to start on.

The idea is a 30 minute story. I think I can do that. I will just have to start tommarow. See, the whole idea and everything comes from within that 30 minute period.

Oh well, Tommarow expect a great short story. Or some other sort of hack writing I'm much more likley to be doing.

Either Way good times.

I pulled, I prodded, I yanked from the earth

This is an essay I wrote as part of my writing class. Its here because I feel like it.

I spent the morning pulling up weeds at my job. It’s not part of my normal job; one of my coworkers had slacked on his responsibilities. It amounted to his spraying weed killer on them, and later coming by and pulling the dead weeds out. Which was done sporadically at best. So I pulled weeds. I hacked at the larger ones with a hoe. I grabbed the ones that had rolled off like tumbleweeds, the weeds that had been sprayed. I came home with a broken blister on my hand, and sore thumbs like video games had never known.

I saw many different plants that day. Some were tumbleweeds, as tall as I was. They had rolled up on the fence, held up from the old-west showdown that they were late for. I was sure a lot more got away, as they had stacked 6 feet to the top of the fence. The live ones resisted my pull, desisting and rejecting human intervention. Some were wide, some were thorny, and several were even thin and narrow. However, all the plants were tall. Most as tall as my shoulders, they were.

Also removed was a tree. It was near the fence as well it was small and only 5 or 6 years old. The company was going to be putting down asphalt to better maintain its yard. The tree had to go. It was already close enough to the fence to start growing into it. We cut the plant limbs that were growing through the fence, so we could pull it out. Then they pulled in the crane they have. All the while I sat and watched, wondering why they need to pull out the tree. After the steel hooks found purchase the crane struggled briefly. With a heart-wrenching tear, the tree came free of the earth.

I look at where the tree was even now. It has a piece of wood still attached to the fence, where the young tree stands no more. I wonder who should have privilege over there. Do the “weeds” and trees that do nothing to the outside world have precedence, or the men who use the land to store merchandise and equipment? Who are we to say what lives and what dies? These men could not say what all man-made is there; it looks like a junkyard. Nature is gone, replaced with a junkyard. Today, I was weeding at work. I pulled, I prodded, and I yanked from the ground. What was once a jungle of weeds is now a jungle of steel. What is better; A plot of plants, now overgrown; or perhaps a layer of junk, rusted red with age? I toiled and worked, pulled nature from not. I wondered: will nature be back? Will it cover the junk? Why do we need it except to keep it “humane”?