It’s that wonderful time of year when people get shivved in your local electronics store while in pursuit of the last PS5, drive-bys resolve parking disputes and the staff at the lay-by department have shotguns strapped under the counter, one hand never more than a hair’s-breadth away from the trigger.
It’s getting tense.
I try (really, I really try) to lift my tolerance levels this time of year. I, personally, have nothing new causing angst. (The usual family reasons are evergreen — no additional focus at this time of year.) So there’s no point in letting others drive me to pour petrol into a shopping cart loaded with wrapping paper and toss a lit flare into it.
I don’t know if the dude who cut me off and “stole” (I didn’t really own it in the first place) my parking spot is just a dick, or if he just lost his job and has two young children expecting Santa to dump a bag full of gifts under their $15 plastic Christmas tree.
I don’t know if the woman who used her grocery cart to push an older woman out of the way so she could grab the last bag of crushed walnuts was a sociopath, of if that’s the last ingredient she needs for the dessert she always makes for her now ailing mother, and this is the fifth grocery store she’s been to today. I mean, there has definitely been an inexplicable run on crushed walnuts.
I just don’t know.
So I’m giving a lot of people a lot of benefit of the doubt. I’m allowing three times expected travel time to get places. I’ve lowered my expectations of human decency down to the level of Sean Hannity, Tucker Carlson or Paula Hanson.
But fair warning, this all ends Jan 2nd.