'Tis The Season For Something, Alright ...

I had made a commitment to myself to not be so grumpy this holiday season. I’m not sure why I get my panties all in a bunch this time of year in the first place – I’m not religious, but it certainly doesn’t bother me that the Christians usurped the pagan celebration of the sun god Mithra throw a birthday bash on some arbitrary day, nor do I really care that the Jews had some hash oil that was so strong they stayed high for eight days (or something ... my knowledge of theology may be a bit lacking … it might have been me that was wasted for eight days).

Whatever the reasons, I know two things:

1) Part of it has to do with traffic, and
2) I’m not going to meet that commitment this year.

I was working on a little something out in the garage last night (not a euphemism), and my band saw blade broke. This happened, of course, while I had all kinds of guides and jigs set up to make certain cuts, which I had to remove to get the broken blade out, and which I’ll never get set up the same way again, so I’ll basically have to start over. Since, years ago, I made the decision to buy a band saw from Harbor Freight, meaning that it takes some freak-sized blade that only they sell, I had to drive out Fairview avenue in the middle of the afternoon.

The Fairview avenue that has stoplights approximately a mile apart. The Fairview avenue that’s bumper-to-bumper traffic, each driver cheerfully exuding that “piss-on-you-jack-I-got-mine” holiday attitude in between text messages. The Fairview avenue on to which I needed to turn left. THAT Fairview avenue.

The process of turning right, switching lanes, getting into the middle turn lane, pulling into a parking lot, and pulling back out to complete my virtual left turn took approximately 4 ½ days. Hence the failed commitment. I will be grumpy, my heart will not grow three sizes this or any other day, and I will not have the strength of ten Grinches plus two.

Ultimately, of course, I blame the person on whose gift I was working. Oh, I’ll finish it, and give it to them, but I just hope they know that my dog got an extra Kwanzmasakkuhstice beat-down because of them.