Christmas geeks

When did Christmas become a four-month holiday?

Wife took me hostage one August evening - "let's go to Rock Bottom for dinner, dear, you can get your favorite beer," that's her way of getting me out of the house - and dragged me into JoAnn's Fabrics, Crafts and Shit. She promised 10 minute visit. I knew better. When she says 10 minutes in a store, I check the Wifespeak-to-English dictionary and there, under the heading "Time," I see the conversion rate for 10 minutes is really 42:31. I wanted to point this out to Wife, but she bound my hands and gagged me, so a) I wouldn't break anything in the store, and b) so I couldn't discuss escape plans with fellow hostages.

The store is like a giant Mervyn's without sleeves. Clothing fabric everywhere, but nothing you can try on. I was doing fine trying to work my hands free to signal for help from a passerby who likely freed himself and escaped the Hallmark store next door, when I ambled into St. Nick's workshop. JoAnn's, that wench, transported me to the North Pole in August. AUGUST! And everywhere I looked was Christmas crap. Robotic Rudolphs, Frosty the Snowman inflatable snowglobes, wreaths that smell like Blitzen just urinated on it, ceramic villages where the people look so happy you just want to smash their little heads with a ball-ping hammer to bring them into the real world, and nutcrackers that still spook the bejeezus out of me with their gritting teeth and gaping maws.

I try to tell Wife, around the gag, that we must go before I poop myself in protest of JoAnn's selling Christmas crap when it was still 155 degrees outside (August remember). Decorating one's house for Christmas, or selling said crap, should be triggered by either a date, or a temperature if you're in Arizona (like Monsoon season, three straight days of sub-65 degree weather and out come the light nets and lumi-frickin'-narias). She doesn't listen to me, and five minutes later she's asked by Cathy the Craft Nerd Clerk to take me outside because shoppers don't know what smells worse reindeer urine-scented wreaths or poop-scented husband.

I talk about that to talk about this - on Nov. 1, I noticed Mr. Green House (it would be perfect it all he wore were green jeans, too) had already lined his fence, eaves, garage, windows, chicken coop and anything else that didn't move with Christmas lights. I checked weather.com, and nope, no consecutive days of sub-65 degree temps here in Arizona. I thought about hooking one of the Christmas lights to the bumper of my truck and pulling them off, dragging the strand down Loop 101 until I hear no more pops and tinkling of broken bulbs. I couldn't do it, though, because Mr. Green House sits on the county island and has chickens, therefore he's a farmer (chickens=farmers in my book). And every movie I've watched, the farmer is packing heat inside, be it a double-barrel shotgun, deer rifle or rocket launcher ("Red Dawn"). Call me crazy, but I don't want to decorate our house with a gory hole where my pumpkin pie holder, re: my tummy, should be.

Lucky for Perfectly Manicured Front Yard Guy down the street, I saw Mr. Green House's display two weeks earlier, because this afternoon, after seeing the former lining his domicile with Christmas lights, I would have taken a hammer and nail to each red and white bulb, even those on the roof. But by this point, I've given up. If they can't wait until after the Thanksgiving holiday, what more can I do? I guess I'll keep peeing on their extension cords at 3:20 a.m. until they get the hint.

Maybe they should just take a lesson from us ... Wife and I just left our blue and white twinkle lights up all year (more out of laziness than by design). Works out perfectly, but the Arizona sun does something to blue Christmas lights - it turns them green. So you'll recognize our house this year, its' the one with the faceless plywood snowmen and teal Christmas lights. Nothing says "ho-ho-ho" like teal.