Ruined

I m so lucky I even have a job. I know that. Yet it's kind of ruined me, or at least it's ruined my appreciation of the Boston Terrier, the finest of dogs.

I work at a fancy-shmancy dog magazine, and now when I see a Boston Terrier on the street--as I did this morning--I don't think, "Ooooh, how cute!" Instead, I think, "Legs too long, not square at all, roachy topline, and the damned thing has a hackney gait!"

I've always thought that the more you learn about any topic, the more interesting it becomes. But now I think maybe there comes a point of diminishing returns, the point where you really do know too much.

CONTEST RESULTS: I WIN.
As for the contest I had going with DJ Kelly as to which of us would be the first to hear Christmas music in a store (see my previous blog post), today, Monday, Nov. 10, at approximately 12:40 PM, I was in the 10th floor Men's Dept. at Lord & Taylor buying shirts with Mr. Sluggo because Lord & Taylor is so desperate for customers that they practically follow you around and force you to take stuff for free, and while we were there a very jazzy version of "Here Comes Santa Claus" came on the Muzak. (All the big Christmas decorations are up on the main floor, and the Christmas windows are to be unveiled this Thursday, which is 2 weeks before Thanksgiving.)

I emailed DJ Kelly when I got back to my office--at my job, the one that's ruined Boston Terriers for me--and I wrote, "DO I WIN? Or are you gonna tell me you heard some Xmas music a couple days ago and forgot to write to me about it?" She wrote back and graciously conceded, as follows: "SHOOT!!!!  You WIN!  I've been singing Christmas music in my head in anticipation, but I haven't actually heard any yet. What are the losers who run Marshall's and TJ Maxx thinking, for Christ's sake!!!   Buy, Buy,
Buy!!! That's all that matters."

Of course the overall winner, if this contest were open to anybody else, would be Blog Reader EH, who claims to have heard Christmas music in a Home Depot somewhere on Halloween night. I do not know if this caused Blog Reader EH to buy big, unnecessary pieces of plywood, however.

Thanks for reading my blogpost this time, and may God bless my Aunt Gina, who has died.

Comments

[Swami]

Lowe's in Bay Shore, NY. Christmas trees and ephemera displayed @ September 15th, blocking the Halloween stuff; it was 80 degrees outside, but my blood was @212 degrees. I can't state positively as to whether there was music or muzak, so I guess this one is moot.
Also, I have always noticed the worse the state of the economy the earlier the Xmas stuff is out there.

[Alison Randall]

Oh yeah? Well, I've got my Christmas tree and wreath up. My cat managed to hang himself in it the very same day (he's okay now), so maybe it's Karma for starting early.

[James]

More than one NYC music store I frequent (the big chain types, not the hip independent places I also hit) were stocking the Christmas CDs (and DVDs) before Halloween.

[Jay]

Lowes here in Asheville NC had the Xmas stuff out mid-Sept, as well.

Sam's Club had Christmas music on starting sometime last weekend (Nov 1-2).

I realize they're trying to get a jump on what will likely be the crappiest Xmas Season in memory, but someone needs to pay for the damage they're doing to me and my psyche.

[Martin]

A Christmas tune -- I am trying to repress it, but I believe it was "Holly Jolly Christmas" -- was playing in the Rite-Way Dry Cleaners in Cambridge at 10:29 a.m., Friday November 7th. They got my business anyway, and it may have been a radio station that deserves the blame.

[DJ Kelly]

Let's make this a new WFMU holiday tradition-competition! Technically this whole thing started because I USED to get mad when I saw holiday crap before Thanksy, but this year it was out pre-Holloweeny. And whenever I'm mad, I leave semi-incoherent messages in Bronwyn's work voice mail box in the middle of the night. I highly recommend this as a form of talk therapy. Hunker Down Ya'll... we're going in.

[bartleby]

What I want to know is - Howcome nobody boxes on Boxing Day? Furthermore why is boxing the "sweet science" but backgammon is the "cruelest game?" Why do Xmas decorations appear earlier every year? Well that's a result of the tendency of profit to fall. A human can assemble a toaster or a machine can assemble a toaster. Lately it's more machines than humans. Unfortunately (or more likely fortunately) thus far and into the forseeable future a machine will never buy a toaster.

[EH]

It actually did NOT cause me to buy extra plywood, but I did make an extra lap to see if I could find some window hardware to tame my squeaky apartment. No luck there, unfortunately, but not for a lack of trying.

While I might say now that it was a rendition of "Here Comes Santa Claus," my memory is now fuzzy enough two weeks later that it's entirely possible that it was one of those songs that, y'know, has a non-Christmas set of lyrics in a chicken-and-egg compositional battle of pop culture, "Adeste Fideles" or some such. It is by this sliver of possibility that Home Depot (and me, by extension) could be considered to win only on a technicality due to HD's playing of the musicological ambiguity card. I HATE it when that happens!

[Jennifer Steffey]

As an owner of a Boston terrier, I accept the individual faults of the breed because I know from reading my animal husbandry logs that all Bostons descended from a successful pairing of a monkey and a pig. Don't blame the dog for all it's inbreeding quirks. Hopefully within just a few more generations we will have perfected the dog to look exactly like Mr. Peanut, monocle and all.

[Ivy]

The UK doesn't celebrate Thanksgiving so there is no feeling of a holiday approaching at the end of this month. Some of the stores have begun encouraging people to start spending for Christmas but I haven't heard any recorded Christmas music yet in the shops. However, today as I was doing some grocery shopping in a supermarket a woman ahead of me suddenly started to sing "Jingle Bells" while pushing her shopping cart. Is November 19 a record for starting to sing carols while shopping?