I'm no fan of religious anything, so the lack of religious feeling to this holiday doesn't bother me.
What bothers me is the sheer volume of people one has to deal with.
As we just had a serious storm blow through (and take down a large chunk of the infrastructure in the process), it's even worse. People from areas without power migrate to areas with power, naturally enough. And anyone driving from one place to another has to do so on whichever roads are open, adding to the traffic burden. All of this is reasonable, given the magnitude of the disaster.
But everyone *also* seems to be in full-holiday-mode, so that where one might have to deal with a little extra traffic, or a few more people at the store than usual, one now has to confront surging seas of cars, mostly disregarding traffic lights (when they actually function), gridlocking roads, and clogging parking lots, parked randomly across handicap spaces. Getting *to* a freeway is an iffy proposition, and one's odds of survival decrease once there.
Eating at a restaurant becomes an exercise in endurance, as virtually all restaurants have a minimum 45-minute wait for a table...and don't even think of stepping out of the tightly-packed crowd in front of the hostess station, since you'll lose your place in the queue.
It's as if the population of this area (already far too high for my tastes) suddenly tripled. And I can't use the "just doing my usual thing, no christmas here" trick to jump the line, since there are a several others just trying to replace the milk that spoiled since the power's been out, but they're scattered amongst the crowds pushing towering carts filled with useless holiday gifts, and always, for some reason, writing checks (slowly!) to pay for them.
I'm in a bad mood most of the time, and usually worse this time of year. This year, it's turning savage.
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Date: 2006-12-20 03:01 am (UTC)What bothers me is the sheer volume of people one has to deal with.
As we just had a serious storm blow through (and take down a large chunk of the infrastructure in the process), it's even worse. People from areas without power migrate to areas with power, naturally enough. And anyone driving from one place to another has to do so on whichever roads are open, adding to the traffic burden. All of this is reasonable, given the magnitude of the disaster.
But everyone *also* seems to be in full-holiday-mode, so that where one might have to deal with a little extra traffic, or a few more people at the store than usual, one now has to confront surging seas of cars, mostly disregarding traffic lights (when they actually function), gridlocking roads, and clogging parking lots, parked randomly across handicap spaces. Getting *to* a freeway is an iffy proposition, and one's odds of survival decrease once there.
Eating at a restaurant becomes an exercise in endurance, as virtually all restaurants have a minimum 45-minute wait for a table...and don't even think of stepping out of the tightly-packed crowd in front of the hostess station, since you'll lose your place in the queue.
It's as if the population of this area (already far too high for my tastes) suddenly tripled. And I can't use the "just doing my usual thing, no christmas here" trick to jump the line, since there are a several others just trying to replace the milk that spoiled since the power's been out, but they're scattered amongst the crowds pushing towering carts filled with useless holiday gifts, and always, for some reason, writing checks (slowly!) to pay for them.
I'm in a bad mood most of the time, and usually worse this time of year. This year, it's turning savage.