living, thinking and writing
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| PRACTICE living, thinking and writing |
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Thursday, December 09, 2004 The very long Christmas songs I don’t usually do the Christmas shopping; first, I don’t have much of family in this country and none of my international friends are really into Christmas. Second, since I learnt the difference of Hanukkah and Christmas, I’m especially cautious giving Christmas card or present to American friends, and the safest thing is, not give anything. However, as shallow as me, I usually do after-Christmas shopping for killer price. My unusual Christmas shopping this year starts with the unusually cold winter in Los Angeles. I don’t own any warm pants since I moved out of Buffalo; plus wearing some warm underpants is so un-Californian, so I decided to shop some cotton or wool pants that are soft and warm. GOd, how difficult it is to get a pair of petite pants in Westside; and it really hurts to admit that the fitting one is dragging on the floor. To my opinion, all those trendy pants are designed for leggy models, yes, long legs and firm and flat abs. That's understandable. In Westside, there are fitness centers or tanning clubs in every block, but the number of buffet in the whole Westside? Zero. I never see any over-weight man or woman dares to shamelessly walk on the street. So yes, it is understandable most of stores don’t need to have an inventory for those with even the slightly deviant bodies. So I decided to go to a more plebeian place. By Plebeian place, in Westside, it means department stores like Robinson May or Macy. The firsts one is a kind of old for me, so I swore to find something in Macy, which has started its holiday hours and open till 11pm. Even I’ve got used to operatic ‘Ave Maria’ and jazzy ‘Let it snow’ that have been played everyday in Starbucks since Halloween, which has made me cut my Starbuck time in half, the music played in Macy is still over-festival for me. It was late at night, approaching 10, not too many customers around, the blatant while bland chanting of ‘Merry Christmas, and Happy New year’ (What’s the name of these hideous song anyway?) in children’s voice, like a horde of invisible ghosts sweeping around the store. And then the emotionless baritone started to hum ‘I will be home for Christmas and you can count on me, blah blah blah’, and then you can guess, very flirty ‘Santa Claus blah blah….’ and another very flirty ‘Let it snow, let it snow’. And jingle bells lalala. The same repertoire is replayed again and again while I strolled in the store and it makes you wonder there might be no any better Christmas music in the world. It's like you are indeed in the Matrix, I mean THE MATRIX, in which these cold, machine-like noises, generated by computer and sung by robots are programed to play endlessly. Luckily, amongst this audio torture, I did find three pair of warm pants in the unfashionable middle-aged woman pettite collection (a figure like mine seems only tolerable when grown on a old lady, what a cruel city,! or, wait, maybe I am indeed a middle-aged). When I checked out, I was told that by opening a Macy account, I can save 30% during this ‘holiday weekend’, which, by the way, is 10 days after Thanksgiving, and three weeks before Christmas. Nonetheless, as housewifely as me, I opened an account; even more, I came back the second day to take the advantage of 30% discount effective through 24 hours, and to suffer the same noise of 24 hours. I could not help asking the very nice saleswoman who helped me checking out twice, today and yestoday: ‘won’t you go crazy listening to this music whole day?’ The smart woman surprisingly took out a pair of ear plugs and told me: “My husband is a musician, and gave me these ear plugs. He said it was a torture to listen to this garbage all day long.’ The latest Time Magazine has a small piece saying how profitable some radio stations became this year by going all Christmas as early as Halloween: rating hikes and advertisers flock. And it puts people in shopping mood. I feel it is incredible. I’ve only been in this country 6 years and did not paid attention to Christmas until recent couple of years. And I’ve been so cloyed by the bombs of Christmas music heard everywhere, even inescapable in restrooms, 1/6 of the year every year. My migraine comes back since November, and I started to wonder if it is caused by Christmas songs. Shopping mood cultivated by Christmas song? No way, it is the discount, you fool. Is it just me that has to bear this audio torture for a 30% discount? If I don’t need these old-ladies' winter pants and not care for the 30% of discount, I imagine what I will do is screaming and running all the way out of the mall. posted by lmeimei @1:38 AM| permanent link| | |
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