It is apparently Christmas time again. Of course, I know this to be true because our local Hobby Lobby (think giant box store filled with things to craft/DIY) decided a month ago to start filling their aisles with Christmas trees, and ornaments, and other festive holiday cheer. So naturally like a crazy person, I started crafting this years Christmas list in my head. After some long hard thought (more like, it was way too hot outside to even think about walking to my car so I was trying to enjoy the most out of their industrial a/c), I decided, this year, I think I'm getting people on my list, a cardboard box.
Every year tv, that devil bastard, tells us, nay threatens us, by saying that unless we buy this xyz product, either you, your family, or your kids or the kids you buy for will find no possible joy and happiness in life. It's all right there in the fine print on the commercials. You'll know this because they'll put it on Facebook or Twitter how you have ruined their souls by not paying tons of money...for something...the latest phone, latest shoe, latest technological gadgetry that's sure to be as much of a life changing event as getting one's diploma or giving birth to a child.
Where in the actual f*ck did all the hover boards go? Stop and think about the last possible time you saw some idiot scooting down the sidewalk with one. Last Christmas everyone lost their ever loving minds and decided that walking ten feet was somehow so complicated that they had to invent a product to roll them the distance (Wall-E much?), but that would cost you 5-7 hundred dollars or more, and you still have to charge it, it blows up, its banned in most places, and you can't take it on a airplane. And now, after you killed your credit card buying two of those so your Mom and Dad who have no coordination even standing on two feet, could fall and break their collective ankles on the matching things, where are they? WHERE!?!
I'll tell you where. Your "investment in the future," is in the attic or the garage or given away to some niece somewhere who has also let it gather dust. This isn't 30 years ago where a toy was so rare and precious that that one neighbor would be hoisted to heights of greatness for having the latest and greatest from their cool parents. This is 2016, or rather it was 2015. The cool item is only cool for no longer than a few months whether its a shoe, phone, or gadget because everyone now has access. Everyone is snap chattering, and twittering, and Facegoogling every second of their day, every reivew of every product ever made with every vomit inducing selfie taken from every vomit inducing selfie stick for everyone to see.
It's not even a secret anymore how these things grow to fame. First you get some celeb to be seen with said product, then the internet buzz, then the tv ads and stupid news reporters do their cheesy bit pieces on how the product is the new "it item," then you beg someone to get it for you, and they go online and pre-order because they don't want to stand in line because you know everyone will be out doing that but literally everybody else does the same exact thing. So by the end of the week, every one of your neighbors and/or their kids have the same exact thing, and then the old people get a hold of it, and its O-V-E-R.
Nothing carries over past those first 2-3 months after Christmas. Shall we march down memory lane: hover boards, scooters, segways, Wii Fit, Tickle Me Elmos, Guitar hero, Robosapians, Furbies...it's maddening. It's not even a matter of kids aging out of these toys and gadgets, its the era in which we live where we want to consume the next thing and the next more popular thing, and if we can't have it now, its over before we can even try to get it. The whole system is rigged against anyone. Don't even get me started on Apple Product consumerism. Yikes. I mean did you literally just imply that that 6 month phone is now retro...really?
So this year, be warned, or rather live in the delight that you know that I'm getting you a cardboard box. In the spans of a year, you'll need that box. A box cannot be retro, it cannot be uncool, it can be stored precisely in that attic or basement until use, and you'll need it. You'll need it one day when the kids move out of the house, or your daughter needs a castle to build, or you need storage for the books you got from your grandpas will, or a place to pack up this years Christmas tree, or a box to help you recycle with and then recycle the box. It's quite literally the gift that keeps on giving unlike your old hover board there. And should you receive such box, and you're ungrateful, well, it will pretty much be like every year before it, so cheers to that!
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