Gift in smack

Readers, I apologize for petering out on the 12 days of Christmas theme. Everything is so hectic, and for some reason, I CAN’T STOP WRITING. I hope you’ll accept my apologies for biting off a bit more than I could chew.

So, these are the last minutes of holiday shopping, all – are you ready?

I’m not; and though I love a white Christmas, it’s not always such a great thing when you don’t have a car. Due to all of the bus system cuts, I have to walk half a mile to reach the closest stop…I’m not sure they even run at night anymore...guess I should follow up and find out. Riding the bus and bicycle, trudging through snow carrying bags of stuff at night can be a little tricky. I suppose when all else fails, I can call for a cab – and spend $20 just to go five miles distance.

Bah.

Forgive my grumbling…but one thing I’ll never understand is why, when it comes to cutting budgets, it’s always the poor who get the short end of the stick. Actually, I do understand it: the poor are expendable – flotsam and jetsam – let ‘em walk to and from work and our store in the dark and snowy cold of winter nights. After all, what doesn’t kill ‘em will make ‘em stronger…so be sure to kill ‘em.

Humbug.

Listen: though we'd probably spend it differently, my sawbuck is identical to Jan Tanner's sawbuck; when our kid gets hurt, we both worry; and to the best of my knowledge, we both bleed the same color blood….that is, unless hers is green.

I was going to write a Christmas Carol, starring some of my favorite district VIPs – guess who slated to play Scrooge – but that story only has one wicked rich person, and lacks a Wicked Witch entirely. Besides, things happen – and after praying about those things, I was guided into taking a different direction.

Counting blessings simply must be more enjoyable than counting money, right? Am I right??  Or am I wrong?  I mean, I guess I could be swayed into loving money more than people - that's just my orientation, and by now, we all know how flexible that can be.  But I'm an open-minded girl...I can be friendly...I like to see it first, though, and imagine you'd have to start by showing me - so show me the money!  Instead of rose petals this time, cover the bed in $100's; heck, somebody run me a great, big, hot money bubble bath...that way we can launder it at the same time...

Is it getting hot in here, or is it just me?

One of my many blessings is my way with words. There are subsets to this blessing, one being my gift in smack talk; another being my love letters; and please, don’t even ask me to talk dirty to you unless you've first cleared it with your physician.

Long ago, when I was a kid, there was a fashion trend of slogan T-shirts: two that took me a long time to grasp were “I’m with Stupid” and “When I’m good, I’m very good, but when I’m bad, I’m just awful!” But I get it now.

I hope that, through reading my pages and pages of smacking about this one and that, you come to count being on this spider’s good side as a blessing of your own.

And without further ado, please allow me to commence with laying down the smack.