The Brutally Honest Holiday Wish List
- by David Matthews 2
Okay, boys and girls, I hope all my fellow Americans gave yourselves a generous serving of Thanksgiving chow, because now’s the time for you to tighten up those belts you just loosened and start the madcap spending spree for Christmas presents.
I’ve been inundated by family members on what to get for me for Christmas. "What do you want?" they keep asking me. The hardest part is telling them stuff that they can get for me.
It’s not that I don’t have anything I want or need. God knows I have plenty of things that I both want and need! The problem is that most of these things people can’t buy in a store.
So while family members go searching through the stores for the knickknacks that they can wrap up with a bow and put under the tree, I’ll extend to you, my Internet readers, my OTHER holiday wish list - the Brutally Honest Holiday Wish List. (You probably saw that one coming, didn’t you?)
I used to start my wish list with the same thing every year - a date with a Playboy Playmate. This year, however, there have been several factors that have caused me to reconsider that wish. The first one being the realization that as I’ve gotten older, I’ve gotten more and more burned out emotionally. The second reason is that some of my new regular readers happen to be Playmates (unfortunately all of them are married, engaged, or otherwise involved with someone else), and I’ve gotten to know them through e-mail, and I will hopefully know even more of them in March during my work with Glamourcon Atlanta. So I guess that might be considered as close as I can get to having a date with one of these beautiful women.
I wish the stores could hold off on the Christmas merchandise until AFTER Thanksgiving. Anyone notice that the trees and lights were being put on the shelves before the Halloween costumes? I saw more stuff on elves and Christmas long before I even saw one turkey commercial! At this rate, the next generation of kids will be getting Christmas sales just before the Fourth of July! "Hey kids, before you get those back-to-school goodies, why not get your Christmas shopping done early?"
Speaking of Christmas shopping, I would like just ONE Christmas season where we aren’t hearing news about the rabid demand for the newest toy. Just this past weekend, two women were injured in Illinois just trying to get one of the Furby dolls. C’mon folks, is this REALLY worth acting like idiots over? I want every parent who is bitten by this "must buy now" bug to watch the movie "Jingle All The Way" about a hundred times before they try to look for Furby. Maybe after seeing their own greed and guilt lived out on the screen will bring some sense into them.
I know I’m going to piss off a few people with this, but I wish I could find just ONE radio station that I can listen to the news without having to go through endless sports talk or mindless commercials. Just give me the news, I don’t care what the star quarterback’s latest zit looks like or how it might interfere with his performance. I don’t want to know how much more money some athlete with a Clinton-like agent will be making next year. The only time that stuff will interest me is when I go to a game and wonder why one has to take out a second mortgage just to buy a hot dog and a thimble-sized cup of Coke. I want to know how bad the traffic is on the roads. That’s the stuff that really matters. Save me from the wretched pseudo-talk about the latest long-distance calling plan. They can dial 10-10-KISS-OFF for all I care. I want to know how many more freedoms will be legislated away from me by our local, state, and federal politicians. I’d much rather hear about that than the latest faux pas from Dennis Rodman.
I would love to get a REAL tax cut. You know, the kind where you have less money taken away from you in taxes and more money in your paycheck. That’s a real tax cut. Not this phony "tax credit" that the Republicans and Bill Clinton keep saying is a tax cut. That’s not a "tax cut," that’s a complicated government IOU that ends up making them more money in interest than we will ever get in benefits.
I would love to have every politician REALLY be held accountable to their actions. They like sitting in judgment of other people’s actions? They want to talk about personal responsibility? Fine, put THEIR homes and businesses at stake as well. After all, that’s what politicians want to do with other people’s businesses. Why not make the stakes even? It’s easy for politicians to outlaw and regulate everything in sight when they themselves have nothing at stake. Maybe if they start losing their homes and businesses and cars they might think twice about sitting in judgment of other people.
Of course, the spirit of the holiday season is giving as well as getting, so here are some brutally honest wishful gifts I would give out:
To Bill Gates and Microsoft, I would give them some of the political consultants that ran the 1996 and 1998 elections. You know the ones - the kind that made the voters so disgusted at every political candidate, including the incumbents, that they stay at home on election day. Maybe after some attack ads against the government, Janet Reno and company would be a bit leery of taking them to court on a continual basis.
To members of Congress, for all they’ve done this year in terms of the in-fighting, the efforts to censor free speech, the hypocrisy, the lying, and the continual defrauding of the United States, I can only think of one appropriate gift - a Stooge slap. You know the kind - open palm, right across the face, just like Moe did to Larry and Curly. Just get all five hundred plus members of the House and Senate in one line and get someone to drive by in a golf cart for one collective colossal Stooge slap right across the kisser. It’s certainly neither Christian nor libertarian, but I think it would be the next best thing to a massive recall effort, and it would show our disgust quite well.
To Bill and Hillary Clinton, I’d give them, and this country, the one thing they so desperately need - a deserted island someplace where they can work out all their difficulties. Hillary can call herself the queen of the island and organize all the social programs she wants to without worrying about Congress getting in her way, and Bill won’t be "tempted" by all those women. Matter of fact, I believe the chances of him scoring at all on that island would be between slim and none, so he won’t have any scandals there to worry about.
To the US Department of Justice, the best gift of all would probably have to be a little investigation by the Office of Independent Council. Or better yet, an antitrust lawsuit of their own to worry about. Why not? After all, the US government is the biggest monopoly in the world! Should serve them right to have their own affairs probed through like a proctologist after filing so many antitrust lawsuits.
And last but not least - to all the moralists out there, the only gift they truly deserve is a life, so they can leave the lives of everyone else alone.
Well, that’s not too much to ask for, is it?
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