I knew my pink skeleton from Halloween could become a year-round decoration!

I adore tacky Christmas decorations.  I like the nice ones too, but I can identify with “decorate with what you can find.”  A discarded Bud Light bikini bimbo cardboard display from last summer’s beer promotion at the drive thru can be made festive, if that’s all you have.   Some rednecks up in the west side of Marion did that one year and I’m still kicking myself in the ass for not having a camera handy to capture that moment.

Just hang some tinsel and beer cans off of her (like pasties) and you’re all set!

Dad absolutely loathed the holidays when we were growing up, and because we were poor, he waited until the last minute to begrudgingly allow us to put up anything.  One year I stuffed a left over live Christmas tree from one of those tree lot sales after it had ended (on December 23rd, because there were no decorations in the house) in my ’72 Super Beetle and brought it home and set it up.  Dad didn’t like it, but I think he let me go ahead and do it just because it was so much fun for him to watch me unload this nice, crooked, sappy, spiky tree out of the passenger’s seat of said Super Beetle in the middle of an ice storm.  He has a sick sense of humor too.  The tree ended up a bit less than five feet tall and resembled a Charlie Brown tree- but it was free.

Now I have an artificial tree, and it’s pink.  Jerry is afraid that a real Christmas tree is a fire hazard (coming from Mr. Let’s-Drink-a-Fifth-of-Wild-Turkey-Then-Start-a-Fire-in-the-Fireplace-with-Gasoline) so I decided to humor him.

Tastefully tacky?

Jerry can be quite the asshole with absolutely no provocation or logical explanation at all, but any kind of holiday is a sort of license for bad behavior for him.  If he can show his ass, get me upset, or otherwise make a Drama Queen Scene, that’s when he will do it.  Every holiday.  Especially Christmas.  I’m better off to go to 12 Noon Christmas Eve service at church, and then get out of town for the next 36-48 hours.  Guaranteed.

He wonders why on every holiday I beat feet and go somewhere else to wait it out.  Holidays are the few times a year where going to my oldest sister’s actually is a more attractive option than staying home.  This is even taking into consideration her obnoxious in-laws (and I thought mine were raised by wolves) and the fact that she beat the hell out of me every day for the first thirteen years of my life.

Yesterday (Thanksgiving) was no exception to his holiday angst.  I figured if I was out of the house by 8 AM I would be OK.   He had gotten really shitfaced Wednesday night so I figured he would still be sleeping good when I took off. Unfortunately he had set his alarm (?) for 6:30 (he doesn’t get up that early when he has to work) so I got the full “Where’s my breakfast?” and “What did you do with my pills/smokes/underwear/any other item that I normally never touch?” rant.  I was in no mood for his little tirade, and I basically told him he could shove his smokes up his ass and eat shit for all I care.

56, going on 2.

I’m still waiting to see if he has the locks changed today and/or if he throws my shit out on the lawn.  That wouldn’t surprise me, because Jerry is the poster child for conditional “love” if that’s what you call it.  I stopped believing in the concept of romantic “love” many, many years ago.  As long as I run and fetch and kiss his ass, he claims to “love” me.  But the minute I assert any type of resistance to his constant shit-slinging, he goes on and on about how I don’t do anything for him, ya-da, ya-da, just like a brat child who doesn’t get his way.  I put up with his shit mostly because I’m old, and for the sake of the dogs.

I don’t understand why this brat child in a geezer’s body, who would have absolutely no clue how to do more to maintain himself than the most basic of personal hygiene, wants to threaten me.  That’s not very smart on his part.  Before you tell me to get out, be careful what you wish for.  You might just get it- and when I am done, I am done.  Just ask my ex.  Only this time I won’t show nearly as much mercy, and I will get a better attorney.  You don’t want me to channel my inner ruthless bitch.  Trust me on that.

I guess I just have to forgive stupid, because I can’t fix it.

Sometimes I wish I could just go from Halloween and skip to about May 1.  I am not a terribly big fan of the holidays, mostly because of Jerry’s bad behavior.  I know I need to sincerely examine why I put up with it because my tolerance of it defies logic.  On one level I’m smarter than that, but on another level, I am letting my emotions govern my behavior. “Following my heart” and showing mercy have always gotten me into trouble.

I’ll see how he behaves tonight.