It's beginning to look a lot like I got screwed.

I have long believed that Christmas, as a holiday, is badly in need of a complete overhaul. Too many holidays combine the same boring old elements--food, family, love, laughter, gifts, joy. It's enough to make you want to puke. I have some ideas of how we can spice up Christmas, and give it a unique, special quality that sets it far apart from the other run-of-the-mill holidays.

First, there's the whole "reward" system--it's ridiculous. We insist on lying to our children by telling them that if they're good all year, they'll be rewarded with presents, since Santa keeps tabs all year on whether we're naughty or nice. It's just not true, and the kids are laughing at us behind our backs for saying so. First off, everyone knows that most kids are total rat bastards all year long, and yet an avalanche of presents gets dumped at their feet every December anyway, in spite of their appalling behavior. I say we chuck the whole false reward system and implement instead a punishment system--not just for kids, but for every man, woman and child.

Yes, Christmas should be a time for people to get punished for their yearlong binges of rudeness, deceit, laziness, greed and general assholery. Instead of spending the entire month of November racing from store to store searching for expensive gifts for everyone you know, how about instead spending the month of November--or the whole year, if you're the plan-ahead type--plotting elaborate ways to hurt and punish and possibly even maim the people you feel have wronged you all year long? Wouldn't that require a lot more thought and effort--and therefore be more personal--than buying some dumb crystal photo frame made in China and sold by the thousands? Think about it, people.

Yes, if I ruled the world, Christmas would be a time for retribution. Which means 99% of you would have awakened this Christmas morning to find scores of tiny little hoofprints in your back and sleigh tread across your face.

That's what my Christmas blog post was going to be about--but then something happened which made me feel as if my mind was being read from across many miles, and my plan to change Christmas was already being implemented--against me. In other words, that's when the FedEx truck arrived with a Christmas present for me from Common Wombat. And this present is one that punishes. Don't believe me? Take a look at this photo and see if you don't feel like your eyes sockets are being raped by a band of Zulu warriors: Yep, that's him. A tiny, horrible little replica of of The Thing That Should Not Be. It burns the retinas, doesn't it? What did I do so wrong in 2007 to be punished like this? I'd understand if I deserved, say, a beating, perhaps a small amputation, or even being blinded with acid or sodomized by Vikings. But this? Even in my revised plan for Christmas, there is such a thing as excessive punishment, and this gift is the very embodiment of that.

Don't ask me where he could possibly have gone to commission the creation of such an unholy image, but I must admit, it is (unfortunately for me) pretty lifelike, as you can see from the photo of the real thing, taken here in Texas the last time I saw him. I was hoping it would be the last time I ever saw him--but now this tiny little plaster bust of evil has invaded my home, and stares angrily at me, silently hostile save for the occasional screech of "Nevermore!"

It just goes to illustrate the unfairness of Christmas in its current state. Have you ever given a really great gift to someone--say, a bottle of expensive gin, or the complete DVD set of all four seasons of Soap--only to receive something criminally crappy in return, like wind chimes or flavored popcorn? That's what I felt like this year, considering the great gift I got this turd. I got him a shirt any one of you would kill a newborn baby to get, one with this logo on it:

And that, folks, is the kind of unfairness that can permanently sour a person against gift-giving, and holidays in general.

That's why next year, I'm doing it all differently. I'm carrying out my lifelong dream to make Christmas into the kind of holiday that we can all, finally, appreciate. I'm going out today to buy a huge notebook, where I will keep copious notes on each tiny infraction committed against me by every last one of you shitheads, and when December 25, 2008 rolls around, you better take cover. Because the apocalypse is coming, baby.

I need an intervention.

Someone please help me. I can't tear myself away from Facebook long enough to write a blog post, wrap Christmas presents, feed my children, or do my weekly grocery shoplifting. Help. And don't judge me. Just help me, you self-righteous pricks.

This is too f'd up even for me.

I've been mocked for years for my habit of drinking pickle juice. I don't just take a little sip out of the jar when I'm spearing a pickle for a sandwich--I actually pour myself a little cup of it and sip it while watching TV. I have to be careful to pace myself, lest I drink all the juice long before the pickles have been consumed, leaving them to sit in the jar and dry up. Now, as far as I'm concerned, my healthy love of the taste of pickle juice doesn't seem like a big deal--certainly no cause for shock and horror--and yet, you should see how otherwise level-headed people lose their minds over a small thing like this. You'd think I was pouring myself a cup of human blood from a Spider-Man thermos I keep in my pantry. Which I also do, from time to time, but never in front of company.

I also eat Pickle Salt. I have no idea what the Twang company was thinking when they made this product, or who their intended demographic is, since I can't think of a single legitimate use for such a product. I understand that the lemon-lime version is used to make horrible Mexican beers taste tolerable--but the pickle flavor? Who's buying that, except me? No matter, since I probably buy enough of it to keep the company afloat all by myself. I keep several packets in my purse, and from time to time I tear one open and eat it like Pixy Stix. For this, I also take an unfair amount of abuse. People are strange.

So it can be inferred that I like the taste of pickles. But this next product? This is too fucked up even for me.
Pickle Juice Sport is, unbelievably, a sport drink made from pickle juice. This is the dumbest marketing concept I've ever heard of, bar none. As someone who drinks a lot of pickle juice, eats a lot of pickle salt, has made pickle juice popsicles on more than one occasion, and whines that outside of Alaska and Canada it's nearly impossible to find dill pickle dip for potato chips, I can tell you that people like me who embrace the taste of pickles in non-pickle form are definitely not in the majority. I've taken enough shit from enough people over my love of pickle juice to say with some authority that this product will fail quicker and more miserably than Mighty Dyckerson's brief experiment with heterosexuality. Even football player Jason Witten, the face of Pickle Juice Sport (who clearly will say yes to any endorsement offer of any kind) has to feel like a shithead when he tries to tell people with a straight face that this is a great product.

So if you happen to be the .00000000589 percent of the population who thinks this drink sounds like just the thing you've been waiting for, my recommendation is to get thee to the store immediately and buy this product in mass quantity, since it can't possibly be around for much longer. And if you happen to run into Jason Witten, call him a shithead for me.