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TimmyDaddy
By Tim Sullivan
Valentines Day and stuff...
lots of stuff
Kristen declared Valentine’s Day a
non-holiday in our relationship many
years ago. It was a blow at the time
of course, after harvesting my own
cocoa beans and taking all those harp
lessons, but now I understand where
she was coming from. Call me jaded,
but Valentine’s Day just isn’t far enough
removed from the December holidays to
allow us to forget that we just got through
with all the lavishing of gifts and the
chocolate-fueled gluttony.
I’m all for made-up holidays like
Talk Like a Pirate Day and National
Hug Day, but Valentine’s Day just reeks
of commercialism. Jewelry, chocolates,
candy and cards are sold to the smitten,
the obligated and everyone in between.
Of all the hallowed days on the calendar,
it may ring the most hollow. It’s just too
much stuff. Enough of the stuff, I say!
If my recycling bins could talk after
this past Christmas, where we were
a household of 11 people for a week,
they would concur. The mettle of the
plastic was sternly tested as we stuffed
(what I hope is not) a landfill’s worth of
cardboard boxes and wrapping paper, not
to mention kitchen and bar-related items,
into the poor receptacles. If Decatur kept
stats on top recyclers, we’d probably have
taken that dubious award home for the
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month of December.
We were so zealous in our cleanup
efforts that we accidentally recycled
a $50 toy. Not the whole thing mind
you; that would’ve have been too clean
a break. No, our casualty came in the
form of an Xbox Disney Infinity game/
Lego configuration thingy. Margo, Elliott
and I spent two hours constructing the
Lego portion, which then snaps on to the
base that plugs into the Xbox. And that’s
what we would’ve done had the base not
been recycled the day before. I can be
something of an extreme recycler when it
comes to reclaiming a tidy household.
Perhaps we need to hit the pause
button and re-evaluate just what the heck
it is we’re doing here. We did take a day
over the holiday break to go hiking and
stay in a yurt at Sweetwater Creek State
Park, to be one with nature and cleanse
our stench of consumerism. But we
packed so much stuff to get us through
the single night of yurting that the
minivan is one upping the recycling bins
when they trade stories.
And while Christmas is well past,
the return and exchange season is still
thriving as the boxes keep showing up
on my doorstep. Kristen had asked for a
good pair of slippers, comfy and warm,
but substantial enough that she can wear
them to walk the dog. I splurged on a
pair of UGGS, and that is pretty much
what she said upon opening the box.
So I returned that box and replaced it
with a second pair that she specifically
instructed me to buy. The next morning,
I saw that box placed next to my laptop
bag, indicating they too were to go the
return route. Like my dog, I am part
boxer.
Slipper box number three, which
I had nothing to do with whatsoever,
contained the winners and should have
marked the end of the deluge. But one
more package came addressed to my
wife from a company named Wang Gang
on Hangdong Road in Shanghai. I was
actually pretty interested in seeing what
was in this particular parcel...
Turns out we had ordered a Robin
Van Persie soccer jersey for Elliott from
the Dutch National Team’s website way
back in mid-December. At the time,
an email came from a Chinese source
thanking us for the order and noting that
“Ofenly, you will receive in 5-7 business
days.” I guess, sometimes, things show
up four weeks later from the Wang Gang,
because, you know, stuff happens. 113
Tim Sullivan grew up in a large family
in the Northeast and now lives with his
small family in Oakhurst. He can be
reached at tim@sullivanfinerugs.com.
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1 4 February 2016 | INtOWll
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