Point of View: That Time Again

Ah, I see it’s that time again. I had suggested to Mary the other day that maybe we ought to become Jehovah’s Witnesses to free us from the bondage of mandatory holiday cheer. This country missed the boat when it came to banning Christians.

I’m not against bonhomie per se, just when it’s enjoined. One wants to lie low at this time of year, hunker down, and let the storm pass.

Anyway, the weather’s all wrong for engendering the Christmas spirit. There are no rosy cheeks, mittens, or hot toddies. It’s warmer here than in Mexico City, for goodness sake — at least it was a week ago.

And it’s also interesting to me that as we buy and buy for the consumers of tomorrow, we are trying our best to jettison most of our possessions — excepting, of course, our holey, and much-loved, sweaters, hers and mine . . . and my three-foot pile of fetid sneakers.

But “bah, humbug” won’t work with Mary, for she knows that it’s my way of trying to duck responsibility. Thus next year I’m to be gifted with the gift-giving.

“But Amazon always sends the presents to me . . . and unwrapped too,” I protest meekly. “And besides, I’m not good at following simple instructions . . . maybe it’s because I’m left-handed. . . .”

“I know what you do,” she said, before I could cite any examples of my affliction. “Remember the night Cebra was to make spaghetti with meat sauce, the first meal he was ever to make — I had suggested it because it was so rudimentary — and how, in the end, I made it. He learned that from you.”

“It’s as Tammy said about the young ticket-taker at the movie theater. She said his thoughts were so rarified that he was incapable of performing mundane tasks — you know, the kind that normal, average, everyday people do.”

I stopped there, however, because I knew that were I to continue with this merriment I’d soon be wondering where Mary went. And, frankly, her presence is the best present I can imagine.