Insert Foot: A temporary solution to trump an awful week
![INSERT FOOT, Tony Hicks](https://riffmagazine.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/Untitled-244-copy.jpg)
Rendering: Adam Pardee/STAFF.
You don’t want to hear about the election unless you had a big worm crawl in your brain and prompt you to vote incorrectly (which might earn you a cabinet post) and I don’t want to talk about it. Especially since my week would’ve sucked even if a forward thinker who cares about other humans was on her way to the White House.
But I may have a temporary solution to your God-awful week.
Thanks to the gasligher-elect Donald Trump and his merry band of fascist thugs, vaccine deniers, self-important misogynists and brainless racists, Christmas comes early this year.
Not because the fleshy dyed-orange time bomb brings preemptive joy to anyone but those who think Stephen Miller is a reasonable human being who’s not the second coming of Joseph Goebbels.
Christmas comes early this year because it must.
Let’s say “the holidays” must come early because that makes them nuts.
This week was so terrible, not even a positive development could be positive. For example, I reconnected with my beloved uncle, a childhood favorite with whom I haven’t spoken in 20 years. Just hearing his voice enveloped me in a cascade of fond memories from a time I wasn’t terrified of losing Social Security. Of course, we connected by circumstance, because his longtime wife died that morning, draping a sad cloud over the conversation.
That was the kind of week many of us had. If death and the ascension of the felon who would be king wasn’t bad enough, I also received legal news that could, quite literally, rip my retirement inside out, downsize me into living in a farm shed and force me to work until my 104th birthday. My lawyer — and I do have one — hasn’t returned my messages.
I also got a Facebook friend request from a dead person, I was told I need to double the diabetes medication and start taking another drug to keep my heart from exploding. I can’t even enjoy caffeine this week, as the fun burns off as soon as it hits the boiling anxiety in my bloodstream (I can hear the sizzle).
The typical relief of exercise is exhausted, as well. I’m tired and have leg cramps. Even the “they’re eating the dogs, they’re eating the cats” memes just aren’t funny anymore; they’ve become enraging. The clowns have turned the circus inside out and it feels like we’re descending into a thick, overpowering Cormac McCarthy novel.
So, as my daughters and I huddled against the darkness coming from all directions the other night, I made a desperate, snap decision:
It’s time to decorate for Christmas. And we may just keep the stuff up for four years.
It’s November, so that doesn’t seem so strange for some. But I’m a traditionalist who pushes back on Christmas until I’ve at least digested the turkey and recovered from the food coma for about a week. Plus, I’m a sixth-degree black belt in procrastination, meaning the decor sometimes isn’t finished until Dec. 27.
But this week demands extreme action. I can’t afford a mad, last-minute rush trip to Disneyland to drown my panic in 24 straight runs on the Pirates of the Caribbean and alcohol is a non-starter. I don’t have time for a “Star Wars” marathon, can’t afford courtside Warriors tickets and don’t have even a make-believe girlfriend with whom I can pretend to make it all go away for a few hours.
But I do have two amazing daughters and five bins of holiday decor gathering dust in various corners of our home.
I have Gene Autry’s voice and bright, colorful lights of many sizes to drown out and outshine the pain, and a fireplace.
I need the Grinch growing a bigger heart, A Miracle on 34th Street, Rudolph getting revenge on the bullies, Frosty re-freezing, Clark Griswold getting his Christmas bonus, and Bill Murray making out with Karen Allen.
Can we do this for four years? No, and I’ll have to crawl out from under the blankets and deal with life again at some point. Maybe the rest will do me some good. It better, because there’s a lot for which sensible, empathetic, democracy lovers who value love, compassion and common sense have to fight over another Presidential term.
Happy holidays and get some rest. You’ll need it.