2000-12-07

Christmas Musick

WARNING: I'm very, very cranky today.

I hate Christmas music. The receptionist outside my office has been playing it all day long, streaming it from the media player on her computer. Maddening.

Don't get me wrong -- there is much I enjoy about Christmas. I spent a good deal of last night merrily working away on a batch of handmade cards, gluestick and paint pens in hand, while listening to Sleater-Kinney. That alone should tip you off: I don't mind the lurid trimmings and baubles of the season, see...it's the music that makes me want to climb the walls.

Here's where me an' the houseboy butt heads. Immediately following Halloween, Kev gets sickly sentimental about Christmas. He'll start coming home with a shiny, showy trinket or two, purchased in a fit of holiday spirit. I can deal with that. It's when he starts dragging out the Christmas music that I find more and more reasons to work in the office a little longer of an evening.

This sums the whole thing up nicely, I think: we spent Thanksgiving at my mother-in-law's, who lives about a half-hour away from us. As we bundled ourselves into the car, along with our mealtime contribution of broccoli bake, I saw Kev reach into the glove compartment for a cassette.

"What is that?"

Kev looked at me, sheepishly. "It's, um...a tape of Christmas music. I bought it at the grocery store the other day when I was picking up the broccoli and the cream-of-mushroom soup."

"I'm not listening to that."

"It's Thanksgiving, hon," Kev whined, "it's legal now..."

"No. No no no. It's not legal until after Thanksgiving."

"Please?"

"Kev. Do you want me to show up at your mom's in one of my moods?" I enjoy dangling that threat in front of him. So petty. So childish.

"Uh."

"Listen," I sighed, "We can listen to it on the way home, okay?"

"Okay."

I popped Gang of Four's Entertainment! into the player, and bounced happily in the seat the whole ride over.

The day was lovely, but as it grew dark outside, I was troubled by a recurring sense of foreboding. I shrugged it off until we got in the car and Kev yanked out my Gang of Four tape and replaced it with....the Christmas music. I began to whimper a protest, when Kev cut me off: "You made the deal, Lees: Gang of Four on the trip over, and the Christmas tape on the drive home."

"All right, all right."

Frankly, I was pretty okay for much of the ride, until we hit the J-way and that strikingly putrid Paul McCartney song came on � you know, the one with the flatulent synthesizer noises and that damnable chorus of "sim-ply hav-ing a WONDERFULCHRISTMASTIME."

"I think I'm going to be sick," I mumbled.

From there it just got worse. I could feel a headache worming its way up from the base of my skull to my temples. The clincher was Diana Ross's turgid rendition of "Silent Night." I'm sure I'm going to offend legions of la Diana's fans when I say that nobody can chew apart - nay, completely deconstruct - a simple melody in quite the way that she can. By the time she'd worked herself up into a treble-soaked tizzy � "Cuh-RIIIIISTUH thuh SAAAAAAVEYOHHHH izzz boh-HOHHHHRNUH" � I had flattened myself against the passenger door, scratching feebly at the window while suppressing an urge to punch somebody.

We pulled up in front of the house just as Willie Nelson began to warble "Pretty Paper." Kev turned off the engine and looked at me. "Wow, that was really bad. I had no idea it would be that bad. I'm wicked sorry, Lees."

"You...are...NOT...to...bring...that...thing...into the house," I fairly hissed as I tried to unclench my jaw.

lisamcc at 16:25:36

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