September goes out like a lion, depending on your definition. I don't know why March is the only month that gets the lion-lamb dichotomy; it would seem to be apt for every month. But it means different things at different times. A lion-like September would be noble and serene and warm, tossing off a few storms here and there; a lamb-like September would be meek and cool and drizzly, complacent before the slaughter of the first frost. Perhaps we need different animals for each month. September goes out like a pushmi-pullu, then: ending as it began.
Shopping at Target Saturday afternoon – along with 3.2 million people – I noticed something alarming. Two things, actually.
1. The Dollar Aisle has abandoned all pretense. Some items now go for $2.50, which contravenes the very foundational premise of a dollar aisle. The aisle was invented to showcase Impulse Junk. Once I bought a dollar-aisle disco ball for my daughter’s sleepover. As you might expect for a dollar item, it wasn’t a high-quality disco ball – when turned on, the ball moved around like Linda Blair’s head. True to its Chinese origins, it stopped working after an hour. Then it exploded in a shower of arsenic and lead. On the other hand, it was only a dollar. It makes you marvel at the world of international commerce: the thing was banged out in a dirty factory, trucked to a port, loaded into a ship, was dragged through the seas to America, unloaded, trucked to Target, heaped in a bin, put in a plastic bag, then transported to my house for an hour of use before it was put in another plastic bag, dumped in a bin, trucked to a landfill, and buried. That’s quite a journey. Seems like a lot of bother for a profit of a quarter.
2. Near the Halloween aisle, a disturbing sign: the Christmas holiday lights are out. The decorations are up, including miniature Star Wars tree-trimmers. (Celebrate the season with Lord Vader, tyrannical master of wholesale death and enslavement!) No one was buying any. Who would? You know the price will drop. You know you won’t put them up next week, let alone before the snow flies. We’re almost two months out from Thanksgiving, for heaven’s sake.
My wife reports that Macy's also has the Xmas stuff up. What could possibly be the reason? I imagine that everyone from the stockboys up to the executives know it's too early and chafe against the dictates to deck the halls, but no one can do anything about it.
It's like Shamrock Shakes in January. It's just wrong. And there's nothing anyone can do about it. Aside from the old pitchforks-and-flaming-torches angry mob, but that seems like an overreaction.
Crossover Holidays
A single permanent universal holiday display wouldn't be bad : traditional turkeys in a manger, or haunted wise men with scary electronic laughs, easter-tree lights.