It's That Time of Year...

Happy ThankHallowNewMas!

Today is the official kickoff of that annual nightmare: the Holiday Season. The Holiday Season now lasts for roughly three months, beginning with Halloween and running through the post-New Year sales. This is the time that Americans traditionally open their wallets and then empty them, then take out their credit cards and max them...all in the name of the peace, love, and Jesus.

Jesus wants you to spend more. Have you considered a home equity line of credit?

I'm sure I'm not the only one who dreads the onset of the Holiday Season. I love Thanksgiving...what's not to love about a holiday devoted entirely to food?...but Christmas just about breaks my spirit every year. It's everything I hate in the world, all draped in twinkly lights and borne in on a sleigh full of electronic gadgets playing Xmas music 24 hours a day for months.

And no, "Jesus is the reason for the season"doesn't help. I'm almost positive that Jesus wouldn't get too choked up about memorializing his birth with a diamond ring from Macy's.

It's just weird. It's weird and wrong and sick to have this 60 day shopping frenzy to commemorate the Prince of Peace. Or the Winter Solstice. Or whatever else drives people to the mall and to Best Buy to fight the crowds for this year's Nintendo Wii to prove they love their children as much as they loved them last year...about $1200 worth each, according to the estimates.

Welcome to Hell. Let the decorating begin.

Nothing Says Easter Like Semen!

Yesterday morning a man brought a semen specimen into my lab for a complete semen analysis. At 9am. On Easter.

So today, we speculated about the conversation at home that must have gone along with that.

"You know, Honey, we already ate the chocolates, and we went to church last Easter. The sermon this year is bound to be the same. Since dinner at my mom's isn't until 2, what say we swing by the hospital and find out what's up with the swimmers?"

You have to admire such a creative, non-traditional holiday celebration.