Today is Sunday, December 4 and there are only 21 days until Christmas. I have completed my shopping, but now have to start wrapping the gifts, I have to get my cards ready to go, I have to decide what I am baking and plan that schedule, I have to start getting the various components for Christmas Eve dinner, I have to …  Sorry, I was starting to spiral out of control there.  Anyway, with only three weeks left, you need to get ready.  Today we celebrate the birthdays of John Cotton, Emil Aarestrup and Max Baer, Jr.  On this day in 1680, a hen in Rome laid an egg imprinted with a comet that was not actually seen until December 16, in 1783 General Washington bid his officers farewell at Fraunce’s Tavern in New York City and in 1978 Dianne Feinstein was named San Francisco’s first female mayor.In Mexico today is the Day of the Artisans, in Tonga it is Proclamation Day and in the US it is National Sock Day and National Cookie Day.

Well, I finally did it. I was pulling into the parking lot at the grocery store and this guy pulls in in front of me.  He should have waited, because he also cut off another car, but he was in a bigger hurry than we were, apparently.  He then proceeds to drive very slowly down the aisle, weaving back and forth as he drove.  I wondered if he was practicing to pull a float in a parade. He finally found a space and pulled in, allowing the six cars queued up behind him to go. I got a spot and caught up to him as we walked to the store. When I got next to him, I turned and asked him if he was okay.  He looked at like I was nuts and said, “Yeah.  Why?”  I replied, “Because you were driving like you were having a stroke!”  I figured I could get away with it. He was old and I was pretty sure I could take him.  His reply was garbled, but I am positive it was not something I would share here.

Speaking of parking, have you noticed that, the closer we get to Christmas, the more people’s parking skills diminish?  Normally, they are not great, but as we get to within three weeks of Christmas, they get worse.  I thought that maybe since it was getting darker earlier that maybe they were just having a problem seeing lines.  I suppose that is possible in the evening, but not at two in the afternoon.  What makes it worse is that their inability to put their car between two white lines makes it tougher for other people to park.  I do not Ike to squeeze into some spaces because I might not be able to get out of my car. Worse, the way some people fling their doors open, I would end up with dings all over my car door.

Another move that makes me crazy is when a driver pulls through one space to the next one so that the car is facing out and ready for a quick getaway.  I understand why they want to do that, I suppose. I just think that you would want to be able to have easier access to your trunk so that you … but I digress.  The problem is that they have no sense of where they are in the space and usually stop so that the car is hanging into the space behind it.  And God forbid that you look to be sure you are in the space properly.  I saw a woman pull into a space and the back of her car was taking up a good portion of the space next to her.  She got out and looked at how she had parked, saw that she had done poorly, shrugged her shoulders and walked off.  Now you know why episodes of violence increase during the holidays.

Another thing I have noticed is that as the holidays approach, people become stupider (more stupid?) and more ignorant.  They walk around as if they are the only people in the mall, stop in the middle of walkways to decide where they want to go next and then get annoyed when people try to push past them.  I was in a store recently and watched as a man was trying to get information about an item he was interested in.  I watched the way people look at a car accident when they go by.  You know it won’t be pretty, but you can’t stop looking.  The man came in with his wife and their young son.  The man found the item he was interested in and got a salesperson to help him.  He asked a technical question and as the salesperson started to answer, the guy turned to holler at his son for touching something.  He turned back, apologized for the distraction and asked the question again.  As he started to get the answer, again, he thought of something that he had to tell his wife.  He did not apologize this time.

He asked another question and played with his phone while the answer was given.  I know I should have walked away, but I couldn’t.  The salesperson was getting, well, beyond annoyed, but not quite to angry, yet.  The question and answer thing went on a little longer and it was not getting better.  Finally the buyer summarized what he had heard to assure that he knew what he needed to know.  As he talked, the salesperson looked at him as if to say, “What are you talking about?  I never said any of that.”  He wisely nodded his head and then asked if they were ready to make the purchase.  The guy said yes he was.  At this point the salesperson happened to look up and see me laughing and shaking my head.  I could see on his face that this was not the first time this had happened and his realization that it would not be the last.  Just one more reason I am glad I am retired.

This week our fact tells us that last year Americans ate more than 8.5 million pounds of tortilla chips on Super Bowl Sunday.  Don’t tell me that, because there is no way to know it.  You can tell me that they bought that many, but you can’t be sure that they ate them all.  So how much salsa did they consume in the process?

Go get some cookies and have some socks.