The Trouble Makers

Every year I marvel at how the masses rush around trying to snag this gift or that present, and for what?  Is that expensive tie you gave the boss really going to get you that promotion?  Are those expensive sneakers really going to make your child do better in school?  All the material things in the world can't match time. The gift of self and selflessness is better than any designer gee-gaw.

This past "Black Friday," a Wal-Mart worker was trampled to death by over-zealous shoppers and some patrons at a Toys R Us were injured by equally ravenous spenders.  Is this really the spirit of Christmas?  I've given up celebrating the holidays in what has become a tradition of feeding the corporate coffers and validating Madison Avenue's cynicism of the American consumer.

The concept behind spending until one is in debt and eating beyond gluttonous proportions is beyond me.  Those rituals are quite antediluvian and have been well documented in paintings by Pieter Bruegel and his contemporaries.  Scenes of the poor reveling in the streets in a drunken stupor causing mischief while the rich secret away counting their money, hang on the walls of the Kunsthistorisches and other great museums.  The Walmart incident is nothing new and have always been fodder for artist and the 11 O'clock news. 

Everyday for the past two months we've heard about the great recession.  Thousands upon thousands are jobless and homeless, yet somehow this doesn't translate to those waiting to trample defenseless minimum wage workers.  Why?  Because there may be a Tickle me Elmo on sale, or an Nintendo game at half price, for a child who can't conjugate a verb.  Isn't that what their beloved Christ, Jehovah, Allah, God or the principles of Kwanza and Hanukkah promote?  Must be, because year after year the same stories are flashed upon the news, with little variance.  The sad part is that the ones doing the injuring and the ones injured are the least among us with real purchasing power or health insurance to address their wounds.

Long ago I vowed never to get caught in the holiday trap.  I will not participate in the race for the hidden cheese in the maze with the other lab rats. I decided to give more of myself and less to the wealthy merchants.  Why fatten their bulging cash registers when they niggardly dispense goodwill and charity to the less fortunate?  I can not reconcile spending money on things that have little meaning beyond hoping they would translate into more things or favors for me.   I elect to  do something selfless and selfish at the same time. I spend it with people.

This year I was at the Kingsley Manor, which is a senior and assisted living home.  I didn't serve food or handout turkeys, I simply ate and chatted with seniors who didn't have family or out lived friends and family.  They didn't ask for much but my ear and attention.  I felt selfish because I received more than I gave.  I'm a single person in a city that can be unforgiving to single people and instead of being alone I was thankful to be useful and wanted by people who society has pushed to the side.  They were vibrant, opinionated and often feisty.

 "Where's that damn nurse, I'm ready to be taken back to my room."  That man is too old to be riding a bike at night."  "Hey where do you live?  Can you give me a lift to my condo?  My son lives there now but it's still mine?"  "My hair...it's all right but I have to get a tint next week, the roots are showing."

After I ate in their grand dining room I went into their lobby to listen to a senior who was not a resident but still made a living playing  classical piano.  I also wheeled a man to the hospital section of the residence and had an opportunity to visit with the non-ambulatory.  One man, Mohammed, was incontinent and in his eighties but still had an eye for the ladies.  While I tried to figure out why his TV remote was not working he took the opportunity to feel my bottom and try to and move my hand down his Depends.  Obviously he wasn't on his death bed.  The nurse said he had just returned from having dinner with his family.  Apparently Viagra was on the menu.  Down boy!

I was very grateful I was not in the crush of the shopping madness and was able to be around people who gave me a sense of history and purpose.  I shall return to the senior residence regularly, but I'll wear my sneakers so I can make a hasty retreat from the likes of Mohammed.

My new posse.

 
EX-BFF's


The Golden Girls- They've slept with every widower in the residence
Have walker will travel is there motto



The Wild Bunch- Must be chaperoned at all times


He's the cock of the walk because he has an off-site condo in Hollywood
She wears no Depends on the weekends